Sword Art Online: A Virtual Prison
by SSTB
Summary: After Kazuto Kirigaya (Kirito) and Shino Asada (Sinon) get trapped in a death game called Sword Art Online, they must be braver and stronger than ever before to survive and return to the real world. Kirito x Sinon AU. I own nothing. (Do I need to put that?) Rated T for minor swearing and violence.
1. Trapped

**Welcome to a brand new story! This story will be about Kirito and Sinon, and the adventures they have throughout Sword Art Online. I also come with good news, SCHOOL IS OVER! I will have a lot more time to write so BE PREPARED(best Disney song ever!). Let's kick off this new story!**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

My name is Kazuto Kirigaya or, as I am known to my online friends, Kirito. Today is October 31st, which means the official release of (FNAF4) Sword Art Online. I had been chosen for the beta test and I got to the tenth floor. The goal of SAO is to beat all 100 floors in the game, I only had a couple months to get as far as I could but I had barely made it to Floor 10 before it came out of beta. All the beta accounts were being reset today which meant I had to start back at Floor 1, the lowest level of the virtual world known as Aincrad. It was currently 12:56 and the SAO servers didn't go up until 1:00.

"I'm off to practice, see you later!" My little sister, Suguha, called up to me as she left for kendo practice. It was almost 1:00, so I decided to put on my Nerve Gear and get set up. I inserted my beta copy of SAO and put on the Nerve Gear.

"LINK START!" I shouted as my vision then became flooded with colors letting me know my body had become numb and every time I tried to move my body it would instead be translated into actions for my avatar. I had my SAO account all set up so I didn't have to waste time logging in and selecting the different options. As soon as the clock turned 1:00, I pressed the start button and opened my eyes to see the world that had engrossed me for the past few months. I ran threw town as fast as I could to get to the hunting grounds but I was stopped by another player.

"Hey, you look like you know your way around here. You were in the beta test weren't you?" The player told me.

"Yeah." I said hoping this would get me to the hunting grounds faster. I didn't.

"Do you think you could give me some pointers?" he begged.

"Um, sure." I said.

"Thanks! My name is Klein by the way." Klein told me.

"I'm Kirito. Nice to meet you." I said trying to be polite.

 **Sinon's POV**

I am Asada Shino. I am a murderer. A few years ago, during a robbery, I shot a robber to protect my mom. Since then, I can barely look at a gun without having a panic attack. My friend suggested I do something to help with my fear, and I decided to try Sword Art Online. A game with no guns and almost limitless power (or at least that is what the beta testers said). I stood in line for nearly a day to get. These hardcore gamers don't joke around when it comes to big game releases. Somehow, I actually got a copy of the game and the Nerve Gear needed to play it. I put on the Nerve Gear at 12:50 so I could set up my account. I named my player Sinon. She has blue hair, blue eyes and prefers to stay back instead of getting up close and personal during a fight. At least, that is what I think she would do and I am her. I was sent to a fountain area at 1:00 and I immediately ran around to see what was to find in this virtual world. I saw at least 20 people taking off toward the plains.

"Must be beta testers." I thought. For the next hour I looked throughout the village and picked up some throwing picks with my starting money. I was heading to the plains when I heard what sounded like a man screaming in pain over the hill before stopping abruptly.

"What the hell?" I said to myself as I walked over to investigate. I found two players fighting one boar. The one with black hair seemed to be teaching the red-haired one what to do.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked as I walked up to them. The red one's sword glowed and he took out the boar.

"I'm helping him, it is his first time. I'm Kirito and this is Klein." The black-haired one told me.

"What was that screaming?" I wondered.

"Sorry, got hit hard by that thing." Klein said.

"Well, get used to it because those things are the weakest and most common enemy in the game." Kirito told him.

"Seriously! I thought that was a middle-level boss or something." Klein complained. Kirito and I laughed at this.

 **Kirito's POV**

Klein, Sinon and me trained for the rest of the day before sitting on the edge of a cliff staring at the sun as it fell below Aincrad.

"This game is awesome." Sinon said taking in the sight.

"Yeah, totally worth every penny!" Klein said before his stomach began to grumble, "Too bad, I have to logout."

"See you later, Klein! Next time we see each other, let's duel." I told him. I only dueled once before and it was a lot more fun to fight against real players instead of mindless computer-controlled AIs.

"Luckily, I got a pizza ordered for 5:30!" Klein said proudly.

"Somebody is prepared." Sinon said chuckling.

"Huh, the logout button is not there." Klein said confused.

"It should be in your menu. Wait, you are right it is not there!" I said a little scared at this point.

"Why would it not be there? You think one of the most important parts of the game, getting out, would be ready in time for launch." Sinon asked.

"I don't know." I said. We didn't have much time to discuss it as we were all teleported to the area where we first spawned in. The sky was red and a figure appeared out of thin air.

"Hello players. I am Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online, and welcome to my world. You may have already noticed a button missing from your menu. The Logout Button. I can assure you, this is not a defect. This is the way Sword Art Online was made. You cannot logout and if you die in game, the Nerve Gear will send multiple electric shocks through your skull, frying your brain and ending your life. I have also warned the friends and families of the players that if you try to remove the Nerve Gear from a player's head, the same effect will happen. The only way to leave now is to clear all 100 floors, and clear the game." The Game Master, or Akihiko Kayaba, explained to the players. I have been a fan of his for a long time so I know that everything he just said is the truth. If I die in the game, I will die in real life. Without thinking, I grabbed Sinon's and Klein's wrists and dragged them out of the spawn area.

"The best chance we have of getting stronger is heading to the next village. I want you guys to come." I told them.

"Sure. We have a better chance of surviving in a group." Sinon said as she walked over next to me.

"Well, you see. My friends are back at the plaza. We stayed up a whole night to buy this." Klein told us, "But you guys should get to the next village. I ran a guild in the last game I played and with all the stuff you taught me I should get by no problem." Klein continued as he then ran back into the plaza. He was the first friend I made in this death game but regardless I knew Sinon and I had to hurry to the next village. I took off running Sinon following close behind. "I will survive!" I repeated in my head as Sinon and I hacked an slashed through enemy after enemy before finally arriving at the next village.

 **That is it for chapter 1, so let me know how I did. This story will be updated twice a week hopefully so that will be good. BYE!**

 **Next Chapter: The Meeting**


	2. The Meeting

**Hello again! According to the reviews, you guys seem to think the last chapter was rushed. After checking over the last chapter myself, I agree. I will try to fix that this chapter so let me know how I do. The FNAF4 thing last chapter was a joke and will have no effect on the story. The chapters will stay relatively close to the anime episodes, with some extras here and there and, of course, Sinon is there. Let me know if you guys want this to end at floor 75, like the anime, or continue on with the remaining floors. Finally, I know I forgot about the mirror scene last chapter so I will give it a quick mention in this chapter. Thank you guys for the kind and helpful reviews last chapter! Without further ado,**

 **LINK START!**

 **December 2nd, 2022**

 **Kirito's POV**

It has been a little over a month since this death game began and 2000 people have already died. Sinon and I have been grinding enemies for the past month while trying to find the floor boss. A couple hours after we left the spawn area, an item named "mirror" appeared in everyone's inventory causing the player's real face to replace their avatar's. While Sinon was off restocking on throwing picks and other items, I was told there was a meeting being held so players could figure out how to find and defeat the floor one boss. I used to be a beta tester and even I don't know where it is. When Sinon returned, we left for the meeting.

"Hello there. My name is Diavel, and in this game, the job I have is knight." The leader of the meeting said. Everyone laughed this statement since there were no jobs in this game unless you count blacksmithing which was a skill.

"Do you want to hear this or not?" Diavel said causing everyone to go quiet. "Right. My party found the boss' lair this morning. We are going to need to form a raid group to take down this boss. A normal party doesn't stand a chance so everybody form parties of six and we will switch out attacking the boss." Diavel explained. I began to look around and everyone had already formed a party leaving just me and Sinon.

"Um, I will go look for some people that need a party." I said walking toward the bottom of the arena.

"HEY! Before everybody leaves, I got something to say! My name is Kibaou, got that. We are all aware of the 2000 people who have died so far, correct." Everybody nodded in confirmation. "Well, some of you need to apologize to them right now!" Kibaou yelled.

"You are talking about the ex-beta testers, correct?" Diavel asked him.

"Of course. As soon as this damn game started, they just up and left all us beginners. They snagged all the easy quests and hunting spots. They were the only ones getting any stronger! We should make them apologize to us and give us all there items! They shouldn't expect the group to trust them if they don't trust us!" Kibaou shouted. I was getting really worried the group would figure out I was a beta tester and kick me out of the raid group.

"Let me see if I understand you. You think the beta testers are responsible for the 2000 player's deaths." A tall man said walking up to Kibaou.

"Yeah." Kibaou said nervously.

"Well, what about this?" He said holding up a manual. "The NPC's were handing this out for free. You got one, right?" The tall man said.

"I got one. So what?" Kibaou said impatiently.

"You know who wrote this? The ex-beta testers." He said. "Everyone had equal access to this information. Even still, lots of people still died. I'm not trying to point fingers, I am just here to learn from the past players mistakes and beat this game." He turned toward Kibaou, "I'm Agil by the way." Agil said before sitting down and Kibaou reluctantly sat down as well.

"According to this manual, the boss' name is Illfang the Kobold Lord and he summons lots of Kobolds to defend himself along with his sword." Diavel read from the manual. "Anyone who still isn't in a party, please find one. We leave at 10:00 tomorrow. Meeting Adjourned!" Diavel said before going to chat with the other raid group members.

 **Nobody's POV**

"Hello." Sinon said to a player on the far side of the arena wearing a red hood. "Are you in a party yet?" Sinon asked. The red hooded player shook their head. "Do you want to join mine? It is just me and my friend, Kirito, right now. It will only be for this fight." Sinon said. The player nodded their head and Sinon added them to the party.

"My name is Asuna." Asuna said.

"Welcome to the party. I can introduce you to Kirito, if you want." Sinon told her.

"No thanks. I am just going to head back to my room now." Asuna said as she got up and left.

"Hey, Sinon, is this Asuna girl going to be helping us for the boss fight." Kirito said noticing the new party member as he came back from the bottom of the arena.

"Yeah, she just left." Sinon told him.

"Ok. You are going to need a weapon other than throwing picks." Kirito said.

"Why? I like my throwing picks." Sinon complained.

"Well, what if you run out during a fight? You should at least have one in case." Kirito told her.

"Alright. What should I pick?" She asked him. The two talked for half-an-hour before deciding to get Sinon a dagger and train her agility. They went to a forest to find some practice enemies. Kirito guided Sinon's hand with his own to help her get the hang of slicing dodging then slicing again. Sinon blushed whenever Kirito grabbed hold of her hand and guided her. After a couple hours of training, they went back to the room they rented and got ready for the first boss fight.

 **How was that? I think I might of rushed it toward the end but you guys be the judge. I meant to finish this chapter earlier but I just got the new SSB DLC and have been playing it non-stop for a while. Remember to review with your comments/suggestions for this story. Bye!**

 **Next Chapter: Illfang the Kobold Lord**


	3. Illfang the Kobold Lord

**HELLO! How are you? That's good. This story might not be updated as much as one chapter a day anymore, I just wanted to get a few chapters up before I started with this routine. I am going to update one chapter of each of my stories everyday(hopefully) which means Total Drama one day, FNAF the next, SAO third then rinse and repeat. So let's begin chapter 3!  
**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

Around 12:00 AM, I got out of bed and left me and Sinon's room. I couldn't sleep so I decided to walk around town to get ready for the boss battle. The town looked pretty at night even though very few people were still out. I turned a corner and saw Asuna sitting on a bench.

"What are you doing just sitting here at midnight?" I asked her.

"Clearing my head." She responded not looking at me.

"Are you ready for the boss?" I asked. She nodded in response.

"Why are you just walking around here at midnight?" She asked me.

"Um, same as you." I lied.

"Liar." Asuna said still not looking.

"How did you know?" I asked shocked.

"I didn't. You just told me." She said with a tiny grin on her face.

"Crap!" I said under my breath. "Hey, can I tell you a secret?" I asked her.

"Why me? What about Sinon?" Asuna asked me.

"She already knows but I need to tell somebody else." I said staring at the sky.

"Ok, what is it?" She said.

"I was beta tester." I said. She gasped in response.

"Was Sinon also one?" She asked me.

"No. I showed her how to play the game on the first day and we have traveled together for the past month." I told her.

"Were the things Kibaou said true? About beta testers being people who only cared for themselves." She said finally looking at me.

"No. Well, not entirely. I'm sure at least 1 of the 1000 feel that way but not me. There was another person I helped named Klein. We wanted him to come with us but he went back into the Town of Beginnings to find his friends." I said recalling that day. "We should probably get to bed. We need to be energized for the boss fight." I told her before standing up.

"You go. I will stay here a little longer." Asuna said.

"Ok." I responded.

THAT MORNING WHILE WALKING TO THE BOSS ROOM

"So, how was your midnight walk?" Sinon asked me.

"WHAT? How did you know I left?" I asked her.

"Do you think I can't here the door opening and closing?" Sinon asked rhetorically. I blushed before changing the topic.

"Hey, uh, where is Asuna? Shouldn't we go over the strategy." I said.

"She is up there." Sinon pointed before pulling my wrist and running up to her.

"Hey, Asuna, we wanted to go over the strategy." Sinon said pushing me in front of her. "And by we, I mean him." She said.

"SINON!" I yelled before she ran off to talk to the other groups. "Anyways, our group will be taking down the minions. When I attack we will switch and you will activate a sword skill, then Sinon will use her throwing picks to finish it off." I explained to her.

"What's a switch?" She asked.

"Ok, level with me, is this the first time you have been in a party?" I asked. She nodded and I mentally groaned. I spent the next 10 minutes explaining the exact movements we would all do before we arrived at the boss gate.

"Let's go over this one last time. Money will be divided equally amongst the parties. The party who defeats the boss will get the EXP. Anyone who gets an item, gets to keep it. Understood?" Diavel asked and everyone nodded. "Alright, LET'S WIN!" Diavel yelled as everyone ran into the boss room.

"WATCH OUT!" A random person in the group said as the boss landed in the center of the arena.

"Group 1, go after the boss! Groups 5 and 6, keep those minions off us!" Diavel said charging in with group one.

"On it!" Sinon yelled. Sinon, Asuna and I rushed the minions taking out the left side while Group 5 took out the right. For the next 15 minutes, it was a cycle of switching and attacking for us three and the boss had only lost three of its four health bars. When the third was depleted, Illfang switched to an Nodachi.

"This isn't like the beta! That is supposed to be a Talwar!" I said to myself. I looked over and Diavel began rushing. "WAIT STOP!" I yelled just as Diavel got hit by Illfang's sword and was sent sprawling to the ground losing HP fast. I ran over to him and pulled out a health potion. "What the hell were you thinking?" I said. Before I poured the potion over him, he stopped my hand.

"You are just like me." He said barely able to speak, "For everyone here, you have to beat the boss." He muttered before bursting into a million polygons. When this death game began, all that mattered was Sinon and I staying alive. Now I see, he was a beta tester, like me. He fought to help everyone, not just himself. I pulled out my sword and without thinking, ran straight for the boss.

"SINON, ASUNA, HELP ME BEAT THIS GUY!" I yelled activating a sword skill and kept running toward the boss. Sinon and Asuna joined me as the three of us hacked and slashed at the boss for what seemed like forever. "ONE LAST ATTACK!" I shouted before Asuna and I drove our swords through Illfang's chest, causing him to explode into millions of polygons and the victory screen to pop up. Everyone began to yell in excitement over the victory.

"That was some fine swordsmanship." Agil said as he walked up to me. "Today's victory is thanks to you!" He patted me on the shoulder and I smiled back. A screen appeared in front of me reading "Last Attack Bonus. Item: Coat of Midnight" I smiled to myself in satisfaction over my new item.

"STOP CHEERING!" Kibaou yelled from the side of the room. "Why did you do it? WHY DID YOU LET DIAVEL DIE?" Kibaou screamed at me. "Admit it, you knew the boss' attack pattern. If you had told us, DIAVEL WOULDN'T OF HAD TO DIE!" Kibaou continued yelling.

"I know why he knew! He used to be a beta tester!" Someone else from the crowd yelled.

"Just calm down." Agil said trying to avoid a fight, but it wasn't working. I had to think of something to get me out of this. I had an idea that could either work really well or get me killed. I decided to go with it. I started laughing hysterically, like a villain before he has finished his evil plot.

"So you guys think I used to be a beta tester." I said. They all nodded in conformation. "It's not cool to put me in the same group as those noobs." I said causing them to gasp.

"What did you say?" Kibaou said nervously.

"You heard me, the other testers were so green, they didn't even know how to level up. I'm nothing like them. I knew about the boss' attack patterns because I fought way stronger bosses on higher floors. I know a ton of other things too, more than any info broker." I said trying to sound confident and apparently it worked.

"If that is the case, then you are worse than a beta tester. You are a god damn cheater, that's what you are!" Kibaou yelled.

"He's a beta tester and a cheater. He's a beater!" Somebody from the crowd said.

"A beater huh... yeah that's good, I like it" I said causing everyone to gasp including Sinon. "Ok, you can call me a beater. Just make sure you don't compare me to those beta testers anymore." I said equipping my Coat of Midnight. I began to walk toward the stairs to the second floor until I was stopped by Sinon.

"Where the hell do you think you are going without me?" Sinon asked angrily.

"This is where we separate, Sinon." I said disbanding the party. She just stared at me heartbroken. "It was fun while it lasted." I told her before continuing to walk up the steps. I turned around for a second to see Sinon eyeing the floor with Asuna next to her. Sinon looked about ready to cry. I wanted her to stay but I knew if she went with me it would cause her more trouble from other players. "You can become strong on your own." I said to Asuna and Sinon. "But if the day comes when someone you trust invites you to a guild, don't turn it down. There are limits to what a solo player can do alone." I told them.

"But, you are solo." Asuna pointed out.

"I intend to break those limits." I said and without another word leaving the first floor and the last of the friends I had in this world.

 **These SAO chapters are long. Over 1600 words in this chapter alone! Now, Kirito is all alone and Sinon is stuck with Asuna. Don't worry, Kirito and Sinon will still be meeting just not as often as partners would. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments about this story by sharing it the reviews.**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **The Moonlit Black Cats**


	4. The Moonlit Black Cats

**Ready for Chapter 4? Too bad, it's here! Sinon will not be playing a major role in this chapter (at least her physical avatar won't), sadly, but rest assure, even if Kirito and Sinon aren't partners anymore they will still see each other in game. I got nothing else to say so...**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"A toast, to our savior, Kirito!" a young man wearing red said holding up his drink. The other members of his guild followed his example. I had saved their guild in a labyrinth after they were ambushed by a group of enemies.

"Thanks!" The rest of the guild shouted. I felt embarrassed that the entire guild was praising me about one tiny thing. They were called the Moonlit Black Cats. The member were Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Ducker and Sasamaru.

"If you don't mind me asking, what level are you, Kirito?" Their leader, Keita, asked me.

"20." I lied. In truth, I was level 40, but didn't want these guys to freak out about me being a beater like Kibaou at the first floor boss fight.

"You are at the same level as us!" Tetsuo said in excitement.

"Well, I was wondering. Would you like to be a member of the Moonlit Black Cats?" Keita asked me. I was a solo player for the past couple months, but I had missed having someone to talk to and these guys seem to be cool and great at fighting.

"What about Klein and Sinon?" I thought to myself. They would be pissed if I had joined a guild. I told Klein about what happened at the boss fight and he said I should've stayed partners with Sinon. They both would've thought I had replaced them with these guys.

"Sure!" I said semi-confidently. "I will only stay until these guys can fight by themselves." I thought. Sinon and Klein were at a much higher floor so I doubt they would find me.

"That's awesome!" Ducker said. Keita sent me a request to join the guild and I accepted. I was an official member of the Moonlit Black Cats.

/

It had been two months I had been in this guild and they had welcomed me with open arms. It was late at night now and I was doing some training. I was close to a level up and I didn't want to risk the guild seeing my true level when I leveled up. I had told them I was level 31 but really I was level 47. I began to fight some enemies until found the last person I wanted to, Klein.

"Hey Kirito!" He yelled up at me, "Are you doing some midnight leveling? Wait, what is that icon? Did you join a guild?" He asked me.

"Yeah. They are the Moonlit Black Cats, I have been with them for a couple months now." I told him.

"Sinon is gonna beat the crap out of you if she hears about this. She's pissed about you leaving her back at the boss fight." Klein told me.

"Is she really that upset?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I won't tell her, but she is going to find out eventually." Klein pointed out.

"I'm only with them until they can hold their own. After that, they will join the assault team and Sinon will never know I was in a guild." I said a little unsure of how that plan was going to work.

"Have you even talked to her since you split up?" Klein asked me.

"No." I admitted, "Well, I got to go. I have to head back to the inn before the others know I left." I said. I didn't really need to leave. I just wanted to stop talking about it.

"Don't die, Kirito. How is Sinon going to kill you then?" Klein joked. I ran off as quick as I could. It pained me to remember the look on Sinon's face as I disbanded the party and left for Floor 2. I destroyed the enemies as quick as I could, levelled up and ran back to the inn.

/

"I have an announcement to make! We now have over 3,000,000 col!" Keita said proudly.

"Getting our own house doesn't seem like much of a pocket dream anymore." Sasamaru said.

"Maybe we should upgrade Sachi's equipment." Ducker proposed. Over the past couple weeks, Sachi had been switched to a sword and shield and was still trying to get used to it.

"I'm fine with the equipment I have." Sachi said softly. For the next half-hour the guild was debating over what to do with the money, before finally deciding on saving up for a house later on.

"Kirito, can I talk to you?" Sachi asked after the others left the room.

"Uh, sure. What is it?" I asked.

"How do you stay so brave in here? I see you fight day after day and in the middle of the night you even go out and fight. I'm so scared of dying in here." Sachi admitted. My first thought was how she knew I left at night but I decided that was irrelevant at this moment. My second thought was about how many people were scared of dying in this game.

"I'm scared of dying too." I admitted causing her to gasp.

"Really?" She asked in confusion.

"Yeah. I keep fighting because I know there are people in the real world begging for me to come back. Waiting for the day I wake up. I decided on the first day of this death game, that I would either fight and make it out of this game, or die fighting." I said.

"How do I become strong?" Sachi asked.

"I don't know. Just keep fighting and some day, you will wake up in the real world. Then, you will be strong." I said philosophically. It was how I felt everyday in this game.

"Thank you, Kirito. I will keep fighting. With you and the rest of the guild at my side, I know we can all escape." Sachi said confidently. I was surprised at her sudden mood change but I didn't question it. She was right. I couldn't just leave this guild.

"I will stay with them to the end, and we will all escape!" I thought.

/

"Do you ever think we could make it to the same level as the Holy Dragon Alliance or the Knights of the Blood Oath?" Keita asked me on our way to the teleport pad in the middle of town. We had finally gotten enough col to buy a house and Keita was going to check some out today.

"Weird question, but yeah. If we work hard enough we can catch up to them." I responded. The Holy Dragon Alliance and Knights of the Blood Oath were the strongest guilds in this game. They were at floor 43 right now and we were only at floor 27.

"You really think so. They have a lot of players and we only have 6." Keita said doubting himself.

"We just got to get stronger! Maybe we could even join the assault team." I suggested. I was already apart of the assault team, but according to the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, Heathcliff, I was training some other players to join the assault team, which was kind of true.

"Alright see you later, Keita!" Tetsuo said as Keita teleported away.

"What do you guys say we go on a dungeon raid?" Ducker proposed.

"We should probably stick to our usual hunting spots" I said.

"We are a high enough level, and this way we can get more EXP and money faster." Sasamaru said. I tried to convince them not to but we took a vote and they had the majority. We were going to the dungeon.

/

"Hey guys!" Tetsuo yelled at us. "Check this out, a hidden room with loot!" He said in excitement. We followed him in but when he opened the chest, an item didn't come out. Instead an alarm blared and the door that led out shut.

"Everybody teleport back to town!" I shouted.

"TELEPORT!" Ducker yelled, but he didn't warp out.

"An anti-teleport zone?" I said in confusion. This wasn't in the beta. All of a sudden at least 30 enemies spawned and began attacking us. Before Sasamaru could draw his weapon his back was hit with a powerful blow from an axe causing him to explode into a million polygons. The sign of a players death

"Sasamaru!" Tetsuo shouted as he was fighting off a hoard of enemies. I started slashing at the monsters and they kept dying and respawning.

"How the hell do we beat this?" I asked myself. I looked over and saw Ducker and Tetsuo being taken down by two hoards off monsters. I frantically looked for Sachi. I found her across the room surrounded.

"SACHI!" I yelled trying to fight my way over to her. I was too late as I saw a monster hit her in the back with a club. She whispered something before she burst leaving me once again, all alone. After 10 minutes of fighting, the enemies stopped spawning and I ran back to town to tell Kieta what happened.

"Hey Kirito!" He greeted me as I ran into his room in the inn. "Where is everybody else?" He asked.

"Um, well you see." I said nervously before explaining what happened. After I was done explaining, he shoved me toward the wall and ran out of inn.

"Keita! Wait!" I shouted as I followed him. He didn't stop running until he reached the edge of a bridge. "KEITA!" I yelled. I knew what he was about to do.

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO BE WITH US! YOU ARE JUST A DIRTY BEATER!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. I looked at the ground ashamed. I then looked up to convince him not to jump, but when I looked at the spot he was standing in, he was gone. I peered over the edge in time to see the polygons appear in the air. Keita had committed suicide, all because I let the guild walk into that room.

 **Before you all yell at me, I know I didn't mention Nicholas the Renegade and the revival item but I have my reasons. This chapter is extremely long and I have other plans for it, so don't expect it to be in the next couple chapters. I promise, it will be in this fic somewhere. Don't forget to review if you have any comments/suggestions or you just feel like it. BYE!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Confrontation**


	5. Confrontation

**Hi! I don't have that much to say so...**

 **LINK START!**

 **Nobody's POV**

"Why do you need the healing crystals? Your lizard has healing powers, you know." A girl with red hair covering one of her eyes said.

"But you never fight on the front lines, Rosalia!" A little girl with a dragon on her head said.

"That's why the guys will never heal me. You are the popular one, Silica." The girl with red hair, Rosalia, argued.

"You know what!" Silica (the girl with the dragon) yelled. "If you want my items, then take them! But don't expect me to ever team up with you again!" Silica shouted before storming off.

"Wait! Silica!" Another member of the party begged but Silica kept walking.

 **Sinon's POV**

It had been 7 months since this death game began, and 6 months since my best friend had left me with a complete stranger. Kirito. I had thought about him everyday and I always ended up thinking about how he deserted me. Asuna and I had teamed up after the first floor, now I had decided to let my anger out on some random monsters. I defeated about ten, then I heard a scream coming from deeper in the forest I was in. I ran to the source of the scream and found a little girl, maybe 12 or 13, crying with some monsters ready to attack behind her.

"Look out!" I yelled as I slashed threw them with my dagger. I hated using it because it was Kirito who thought I should get a melee weapon. "Are you okay?" I asked her after the last monster died. She didn't answer, instead she kept crying while holding a feather.

"Pina! Don't leave me all alone here!" She pleaded to nobody.

"You must be a beast tamer, right?" I asked her.

"Yes." She responded plainly.

"I'm sorry. If I had gotten here sooner-" I began to say.

"No. It's not your fault, thank you for saving me. You did what you could." She said with tears in her eyes.

"Check to see if that feather has an name attached to it." I told her. She did what I said and the item name was "Pina's Heart". The girl began to cry again in response to this.

"Hey, don't cry. This means you can still revive her. There is a place on the 47th Floor, known as the Hill of Memories. The Pnuema Flower blooms there and if you bring that feather there, you can revive Pina." I told her. Her eyes then lit up with excitement.

"The 47th floor. Got it! I will keep training and someday, I will revive Pina." She said confidently.

"The time limit is three day." I told her. Her expression faded into sadness again. "Maybe if I tag along, we can reach the 47th floor in three days." I proposed. I didn't even know the girl's name but seeing her sad made me feel sad too.

"Really!" She said in excitement.

"Why not?" I asked rhetorically.

"Ok then. My name is Silica." She said.

"I'm Sinon. I guess we will be working together for the time being." I told her smiling. "She has a weird effect on me." I thought. "She was so positive, her smile could make anyone laugh." I thought.

/

We headed back to town where we would stay for the night. I messaged Asuna telling her I would be gone the next 3 days.

"Maybe for dinner, we could get some cheesecake. It's really good here!" Silica said.

"Sure." I responded. Asuna and I had barely stayed at this floor so I was interested to see what was here.

"Well, if it isn't Silica." A red-haired girl said walking up to us. "Where did your lizard go? Did she run away?" the girl continued to tease Silica.

"HEY!" I yelled. "I am Silica's friend so you better not cross me or her!" I threatened.

"Looks like Silica has another player wrapped around her finger." Rosalia teased.

"Pina died saving me. Not that anybody would do the same for you, Rosalia!" Silica yelled.

"I wouldn't cross the two if I were you." said a hooded player behind Rosalia.

"Who the hell are you?" Rosalia demanded.

"I am Kirito. I know these two and if you want your HP to drop to zero then by all means, continue." Kirito said. Kirito. That guy has the nerve to show up after six months. "I will deal with him later." I thought.

"You don't look that strong. What are you going to do?" Rosalia said pulling out her staff. Kirito pulled out his own sword, Elucidator. I recognized the sword from some stories I had heard about from other players. Apparently, Kirito was the player who got the sword one month ago. The sword noticeably made Rosalia and her friends nervous.

"We could have a duel, or you could leave and nobody would have to get hurt." Kirito threatened. Rosalia scoffed before walking off.

"Thank you, Kirito." Silica said.

"No problem." Kirito responded sheathing his sword. As soon as he was done, I punched him in the face.

"Ow, what the hell, Sinon?" Kirito asked.

"Do you think you can just ditch me, show up 6 months later and expect it to be all good?" I yelled.

"Wait, you two actually know each other?" Silica asked.

"Yeah. Sinon and I worked together." Kirito said.

"Then, he ditched me for no reason so let's go Silica." I said grabbing Silica's wrist.

"Do you want to help us?" Silica asked. She seriously did not ask that, right?

"With what?" Kirito asked. She seriously asked that.

"Sinon and I were going to the Hill of Memories to revive Pina." Silica explained.

"No way in hell am I traveling with him!" I yelled.

"Please!" Silica begged, looking at me with puppy dog eyes.

"Please." Kirito said mockingly. While I didn't care for Kirito, it was for Silica. The three of us could easily make it to the 47th floor in three days easily.

"Fine." I said in defeat. "But don't get any ideas Kirito! I still don't forgive you." I said plainly.

"Fair enough. I will see you guys in the morning. I'm staying at the inn next to the fountain in the center of town." He said before walking off.

"What happened between you and Kirito?" Silica asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." I said.

/

After 2 days of boss fighting, we made it to the 47th floor.

"Wow! There are so many flowers here!" Silica said in amazement.

"Yeah, there are a ton of them. Not the place I would live, but lots of players do live here so, what do I know?" Kirito asked jokingly.

"Not much." I growled at him. I had barely talked to him in the past 2 days, and I did not intend to change that.

"We should probably head to the Hill of Memories now. We have less than a day to revive Pina." Kirito said.

"Ok." Silica said happily. It took us a half-an-hour to reach the Hill of Memories.

"Here, take this." Kirito said as he handed a crystal over to Silica.

"What is it?" She asked.

"A teleport crystal. Warp out if we get into trouble." Kirito instructed.

"Alright." Silica said before pocketing the crystal.

"So, how have you been Sinon?" Kirito asked me.

"I've been fine, not that you would care. Traveling with Asuna is way better than traveling with you." I said.

"By that marking next to your name, you took my advice and joined a guild." Kirito said.

"Yeah. Asuna and I are second and third in command in the Knights of the Blood Oath." I told him.

"Knights of the Blood Oath. Aren't they the strongest guild in this game?" Kirito asked.

"Yeah." I said.

"You are in the Knights of the Blood Oath? That's so cool!" Silica said in excitement.

We hacked and slashed through enemies for the next hour, before finding the Pnuema flower and heading back the way we came. We were crossing the bridge when Kirito stopped us.

"Whoever is hiding better come out, now!" Kirito yelled.

"Impressive. Your detection skill must be very high." Rosalia said after coming out from behind a tree.

"The skill comes in handy more often than you would think." Kirito said calmly.

"Whatever. I'm here to congratulate you on getting the Pnuema flower! Now hand it over!" Rosalia demanded.

"Sorry, but we got this one. You will just have to wait until it blooms again." Kirito said unsheathing his sword.

"So, you want to do this the hard way." Rosalia said. She snapped her fingers and about 10 other players came out from behind the trees.

"Stay back! I got this." Kirito instructed.

"Kill him!" Rosalia shouted. The ten players began to slash at Kirito. However, when I looked at his HP it was still full.

"410." Kirito said after they were done slicing at him. "That is how much damage you can do to me in 10 seconds. I'm level 78. I have 14500 HP and a battle skill that automatically regenerates 600 health every 10 seconds. We could stand here all day and we wouldn't get anywhere." Kirito said.

"Rosalia, look. Black cloak, one handed sword, no shield. He is The Black Swordsman. The solo beater who fights on the front lines of the assault team." A member of Rosalia's gang said.

"Do you remember the guild you attacked 10 days ago, the Silver flags?" Kirito asked.

"The losers with no money." Rosalia responded.

"Their leader survived, and he begged everyone he saw to avenge his dead friends. He didn't just want you killed. He wanted you to go to prison." Kirito said pulling out a teleport crystal. "This crystal has the coordinates to the jail, and I'm sending all you bastards there! My client used every last penny of his to buy this and he will get his money worth!" Kirito yelled.

"No way we are going to prison!" Rosalia yelled. "I'm a green player, and if you attack me you will go orange!" Rosalia shouted. Kirito rushed toward her with lightning speed and held his sword at her throat.

"I'm a solo player, got it? I don't care if I have to play as orange for couple of days." Kirito told her. Rosalia dropped her weapon and Kirito sent the gang to the jail.

"What the hell was that?" I yelled at him when the last player teleported out.

"I guess I should explain. Rosalia was part of a murder guild called Titan's Hand. I was hired to send the guild to prison for there crimes." Kirito explained.

"But her cursor was green." Silica pointed out.

"An easy trick. The green players lead other players toward the red ones to be killed." Kirito explained.

"So, the entire reason you helped us was to catch them?" I said angrily.

"It was part of it. Well, I got to go. I have been away from the front lines for a couple days now, but good luck reviving Pina." Kirito said smiling before teleporting out.

"The assault team... Cool!" Silica said.

"We should probably head back and revive Pina now." I said trying to avoid the topic of Kirito. She agreed and we headed back to the hotel.

"Oh crap!" Silica said.

"What's wrong?" I said worried.

"I still have Kirito's teleport crystal." Silica said causing the both of us to burst into laughter.

 **Well there you have it folks, chapter 5. This chapter was a lot longer than expected so I cut out a few scenes. If you have any comments/suggestions tell me in the reviews. I have nothing else to say but over 2,000 words. Dang. These SAO chapters are long. BYE!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Knights of the Blood Oath**


	6. Knights of the Blood Oath

**Hello! This will be the first chapter that diverges from the regular plot (except for Sinon being in SAO). Kirito will not play a significant role in this chapter. It will focus mainly on Sinon and Asuna during their time in the Knights of the Blood Oath. I hope you like it.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Sinon's POV**

"Goodbye!" Silica said to me as I teleported to the 53rd floor. We had revived Pina the previous night and Silica insisted I stay one more night before heading back to the guild base. Asuna was probably worried about me because I hadn't returned last night. As I headed back, I thought about Kirito. He ditched me back at the first floor, showed up 6 months later and expected everything to be cool between us. After 10 minutes of walking, I spotted Asuna outside the base looking around frantically.

"Looking for something?" I asked her.

"I have been waiting for you! What took you so long? You were supposed to be back yesterday." Asuna yelled.

"I decided to stay one more night. Is that a crime now?" I asked her jokingly.

"You could of at least messaged me about it." Asuna complained as we walked into my room at the base. I didn't have much in there. Asuna and I shared a room so there were two beds on opposite sides of the room. There was a table in between the beds and a bookshelf next to Asuna's bed. The books were mostly updated versions of the manual that was given out by NPC's.

"Guess who I met on my trip." I told her.

"Who?" Asuna asked.

"Kirito." I told her.

"What did you say to him?" She asked.

"I punched him and told him what a jerk he was." I told her.

"Good." She said lying down on her bed.

"I ended up traveling with him because the person who I was helping, Silica, begged me to let him tag along." I said. I told her all about the trip I went on and before I could get to the part about Kirito and Titan's Hand, Godfree, walked into the room.

"I hate to interrupt but Heathcliff wants to see you two." Godfree stated before leaving. Asuna and I walked to the room where we plan for boss fights.

"Hello, thank you for coming so quickly." Heathcliff said to us as we came in.

"Why did you need us?" Asuna asked him.

"As you know, we are going on a boss raid in a couple days. However, according to the guide book the boss is very powerful." Heathcliff stated.

"So, we have fought many powerful bosses before. What makes this one different?" I asked.

"The boss' name is Trigata. The guide book says he has six arms with a devastating blade in each hand. The blades will do massive damage even if all they do is slightly cut you. I want to take precautions and make some preparations. There is a dungeon to the north of here. If you beat the mini-boss there, you get lots of this rare material, Tracklite, our blacksmith, Crane, can make powerful weapons and armor with." Heathcliff explained.

"So, you want us to collect the Tracklite?" I asked.

"Yes." Heathcliff said plainly.

"Alright then. We're in!" Asuna said.

/

A couple hours later we left for the dungeon. After about 3 hours, we reached the entrance and were greeted by a dozen enemies. They were Advanced Kobolds, a weak enemy that anybody who could clear floor one, could be beat with ease. They charged at us and we got into battle position.

"Here we go!" Asuna yelled as she activated her sword skill "Linear". "SWITCH!" She yelled when her attack finished.

"I'm on it!" I yelled as I pulled out the throwing knives Crane made for me, and threw one at each enemy. We repeated this cycle twice before the enemies ran out of HP. Asuna and I continued on through the different corridors of the dungeon. The dungeon was made out of cracked stone. The entire place seemed unstable, as if it were going to collapse at any second. There were tons of Advanced Kobolds and even a few Expert Kobolds, which were basically just bigger, stronger, smarter Advanced Kobolds. After maybe 1 hour of wandering aimlessly and fighting mobs, we took a break.

"Where the hell are we even supposed to go?" I asked to nobody in particular.

"This place is like a maze." Asuna stated taking a drink from the water we packed.

"Heathcliff could of given us some sort of directions to where the mini-boss is." I complained.

"We just got to keep moving and hope we run into the mini-boss." Asuna said. We rested for a couple minutes before continuing to wander through the dungeon.

"We are getting nowhere." I said to Asuna as I picked up my throwing knives after defeating another hoard of enemies.

"We have to keep looking." Asuna told me again.

"This is pointless." I complained. We had been searching for 2 hours maybe and we hadn't found a god damn thing.

"Maybe we should tell Heathcliff, then we could send a raid group out here tomorrow." Asuna suggested.

"I agree. Let's go." I said. After another 30 minutes, I could see the exit.

"Finally!" Asuna said in relief. Her relief was short-lived as the ceiling began rumbling before an enemy burst out of it landing and nearly crushing me. I looked up at the name of the enemy and silently screamed. It read "Illfang the Kobold Lord". A message soon appeared in front of me reading, "Illfang the Kobold Lord Rematch. The Kobold Lord was defeated but now he is back for revenge". Asuna also gasped in horror looking at his health bars. Illfang now had 6 health bars instead of 4 like he had back at the first floor. Illfang wasted no time and immediately began slashing at us with his Nodachi.

"Here goes nothing!" Asuna yelled before using her "Linear" sword skill against him, barely depleting his health bar. I joined in and began to throw my knives at him. We repeated the cycle of hitting and switching over 20 times before his first health bar was depleted.

"How the hell are we supposed to beat this guy?" I asked to no one. I reached for another throwing knife, but it wasn't there. As Asuna fended off Illfang, I frantically looked through my jacket trying to find another throwing knife. I didn't find one. Finally, I pulled out my dagger (which I hate to use) and started trying to attack him. Surprisingly, his health seemed to go down quicker. Either that or I just didn't seem to notice time passing as I hacked and slashed at Illfang. After what seemed like years, Illfang's final health bar depleted and he exploded into millions of polygons. My health bar was in the low yellow and Asuna's was in the high red.

"That. Was. Terrifying." Asuna said.

"At least we got the Tracklite for Heathcliff." I said half-heartedly.

"Yeah. We should get back to base." Asuna said before drinking a health potion. I did the same and we headed back to give Heathcliff the Tracklite.

"Crane is going to have to make me a crap ton of throwing knives for this." I thought.

 **So, that ends that. I would like to say that Tracklite and Trigata are just names that I came up with on the spot. I also always thought that a rematch against Illfang would be cool, so I added it. If you have any suggestions or comments about this story then tell me in the reviews. I take each suggestion into consideration for this story. Finally, I don't believe I mentioned this before but I have two other stories going on currently. One is a Total Drama fic and one is a FNAF fic. (#ShamelessSelfPromotion) BYE!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Safe Zone Murders**


	7. Safe Zone Murders

**I'm back! Sorry it took me so long with the new chapter. I'm lazy. Oh well, I finally decided to write this chapter.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

I was at a boss fight meeting. In a couple days, the assault team would fight the floor boss. The meeting was by the second in command at the Knights of the Blood Oath, Asuna, and she was suggesting we lure the boss into the town and have it target the NPCs. I hated the plan. Just because they were NPCs, doesn't make them much different from a player death. I was going to say something, but decided to not cause a scene. After all, she is the second most powerful player (politically) in this game, after Heathcliff.

"Hey! Kirito!" Klein said to me after the meeting. I tried to leave unnoticed, it didn't work.

"Hi Klein." I said half-heartedly.

"What's wrong?" He asked me.

"Nothing, just thinking about the boss battle. Yeah, that's it. Well, I got to go, bye!" I said as I ran off. If I stayed there, Klein was sure to ask me the question again.

"Are you ever going to join a guild again?" I remembered Klein saying. He asked me that question every time we met since the death of the Moonlit Black Cats. I always would find a way to not answer that question, and today is no exception. I ran all the way back to town and looked at the shops for anything good. As usual, nothing. I bought some food from an NPC and went to the plaza to eat. When I got to the plaza, I heard shouting coming from another player. Hanging from a brown, tall building, was a player with a spear impaling his chest. I immediately ran as fast as I could up the stairs to the top of the building.

"How is this possible?" I said to myself as I ran. It doesn't make any sense for a player to be killed like this. The only logical explanation is a duel but it seems too elaborate to just be a duel. When I reached the top, to my surprise, there was already a player up here. Sinon. She was trying to hoist the player back up here. Before she even knew I was here, I grabbed on to the rope and helped her pull up the player. Sadly, we were too late. All that remained was the spear that impaled him.

"Why the hell are you here?" Sinon asked after I picked up the spear. I was going to get it checked out by Agil tomorrow.

"Trying to help that guy, same as you." I said.

"Whatever. How did he even get up here?" Sinon asked herself.

"Beats me. I can't see a player with a winner icon, so it can't be a duel." I told her as I looked out the window at the crowd. Sinon just started heading down the stairs toward the crowd of people. I followed her down, she is going to need the spear after all.

"Did anybody see what happened before that player was killed?" Sinon asked the crowd. One person stepped forward. She had purple hair and looked around our age.

"That player's name was Caynz. We were supposed to go to dinner together before we got separated." The girl said to us.

"Could you tell us your name?" I asked her softly. It was clear she was very shaken up by Caynz's death.

"I'm Yolko." Yolko said. We talked with Yolko a bit more and decided we talk more about this tomorrow. Sinon and I walked her to her house and as soon as Yolko closed her door, Sinon finally talked to me.

"You don't have to help. I can inform Asuna about this and we can investigate it." Sinon told me.

"Why are you being so official? What happened to the laid back Sinon at floor 1? Anyway, I'm helping with this, with or without you." I said plainly.

"I hate you. You know that, right?" Sinon said.

"Yes, but since we will be working together, you have to stop ignoring me and admit I exist." I teased.

"Shut up." She said.

"Jeez. I'm going to get the spear checked out in the morning by Agil. You can come if you want." I said as I walked away. Surprisingly, she didn't say anything. No snappy remark, no insult. She just left. It was kind of creepy actually.

/

"Hey, Agil!" I greeted my friend as I walked through the door.

"Kirito? How are you doing?" Agil asked.

"Good. I need a favor." I told him.

"Sure, what is it?" He asked.

"I need you to check out this weapon, see if it was made by a player and all that." I told him.

"No problem." He said as I handed him the spear. We were about to head to the back of his shop before the door opened and somebody else entered the shop.

"I'm here. Let's get this over with." Said the one and only, Sinon. Both me and Agil gasped at her arrival. I didn't actually expect her to show up.

"H-Hey Sinon. You're here." I said nervously.

"Yeah. We are checking out that weapon, right?" She said.

"Yeah, we are." I said. Agil grabbed me and pulled me over.

"What are you doing? You are supposed to be a solo player, man." Agil practically yelled.

"I know. We are working together to figure out how a player died. It's no big deal." I told him. He let go of me and all three of us went to the back.

"Asuna is asking Yolko about yesterday as we speak." Sinon told me as Agil inspected the spear.

"Okay. To be honest, I didn't expect you to show up." I told her.

"I only came to figure out what's up with that spear." Sinon said.

"Well, this weapon was made by a player named Grimlock. It's named Guilty Thorn." Agil told us. I grabbed the spear out of Agil's hands and looked at it myself.

"So, this Grimlock guy killed Caynz?" Sinon asked.

"Maybe. It's also possible he made the weapon and somebody else used it to kill him." Agil proposed.

"But why would he name it Guilty Thorn?" I asked myself.

"We will have to ask Yolko about this." Sinon said. She turned toward me just in time to see me trying to impale my own hand with the spear. She stopped my hand at the last second.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" She yelled at me.

"We have to test the spear to see how strong it is." I told her.

"Not like that!" She yelled again. "Agil, please take this for us." Sinon said as she gave Agil the spear.

"Uh, yeah sure." Agil said confused.

"Asuna just messaged me. We are meeting at the Holy Dragon Alliance's HQ." Sinon told me.

"Why there?" I asked.

"I don't know. Let's just go." Sinon said grabbing Kirito's hand and pulling him.

/

"We're here." I said walking into the room Asuna, Yolko and another player sat in.

"This is Schmitt. Yolko and him used to be in a guild." Asuna explained to us.

"Alright. Yolko, have you ever heard the name Grimlock?" Sinon asked.

"Yes. He was also part of our guild. He was in-game married to our leader Griselda. After she died, the guild was disbanded." Yolko explained.

"This was his spear." I told her. Schmitt and Yolko gasped loudly.

"Does that mean Grimlock killed Caynz? What if he goes for us next?" Schmitt said panicking.

"What do you mean?" Sinon asked.

"The guild defeated a powerful monster and got a rare item one day. We had a vote, to either sell it or keep it. Caynz, Schmitt and I were the only ones who wanted to keep it." Yolko explained nervously.

"What if Grimlock is killing us because we didn't vote to sell the item?" Schmitt said panicking still.

"But Grimlock can't kill you guys if you stay in the safe zone and don't accept any duels." I said trying to reassure them.

"THEN HOW DID CAYNZ DIE? IT CAN'T BE GRIMLOCK KILLING, IT'S GRISELDA'S GHOST!" Yolko yelled. "I thought about it last night. If it was a ghost, it would make sense why Caynz died and why-" Yolko tried to explain before stopping. She turned around, and there was a dagger in her back. She fell out of the building. Sinon and I ran trying to catch her, but she still fell and exploded into a million polygons.

 **There is that chapter done. To be honest, I didn't really like this episode but I still tried my best. Also, the reason Sinon is not pissed at Kirito like she was in Chapter 5, is because they have more important issues. PEOPLE ARE DYING IN SAFE ZONES! If you have any suggestions/comments/questions for this story, tell me in a review. BYE!**


	8. Safe Zone Murders Part 2

**Hey guys! I'm really sorry for the delay on this chapter. First, my computer's keyboard just stopped working so now I have to write on my phone until it's fixed. Also, as I mentioned last time, I really hate these two episodes of the anime for some reason. I don't even have a sufficient reason, I just don't like them. Whatever, I'm back, I just watched episode 6 and I'm ready to write!**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"YOLKO!" I yelled as she fell out of the window and was killed. I frantically looked around for the source of the dagger in her back. I spotted a black-cloaked figure on top of the houses. "I'll be back!" I told Sinon and Asuna as I jumped out the window and onto the rooftops. I chased the figure, throwing some needles occasionally. Like normally, they bounced off since you can't kill a player in a safe zone, right? I was about to jump over to them but they pulled out a teleport crystal and vanished. "Damn!" I yelled in frustration. I headed back over to the Holy Dragon Alliance's HQ to tell the girls what happened.

"What was that!?" Asuna yelled at me when I entered the room.

"I was trying to catch that guy!" I said.

"And did you?" Sinon asked.

"No, they teleported out before I could get to them." I explained.

"It has to be a ghost... it's the only way a player could die in a safe zone." Schmitt said nervously. We all silently agreed to leave Schmitt be for the time being. We stopped at the center of town to eat.

"If they're a regular player then how do they kill people in safe zones?" Sinon asked herself as we sat down.

"I don't know, but it was definitely a player. When I tried to hit them with throwing picks, it wouldn't go past the Safe Zone Barrier." I told her.

"Here you go." Asuna said handing each of us wrapped sandwhich.

"Did you cook this yourself?" Sinon asked Asuna hopefully. Asuna nodded in response. I gave her a confused look after she nodded.

"Yeah, I can cook. So what?" Asuna said as she ate her sandwhich. I just shrugged and began eating. After the first bite, I paused.

"This...This is great!" I said before continuing to eat.

"Umm...thanks?" Asuna said.

"I was giving you a compliment, genius. Take it or leave it." I told her. Asuna kicked the bench causing me to drop my sandwhich on the ground and it to burst into a million polygons.

"What just happened?" Sinon questioned trying not to laugh.

"I made the sandwiches this morning so their durability was very low. Guess you should of been eating instead of talking." Asuna said innocently.

"Wait at minute...THAT'S IT! I know what really happened to Caynz and Yolko!" I told them.

 **Schmitt's POV**

I was extremely worried about Griselda's ghost coming after me so I decided to head to her gravesite and beg for forgiveness.

"Griselda." I said when I arrived at her grave. "Please don't come after me. I didn't know they we're going to kill you, I swear! I never wanted any of this to happen! Please, YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!" I cried out desperately.

"Tell me what you have done, Schmitt." A ghostly voice said.

"Griselda's ghost." I thought to myself.

"Tell us what you have done." A manlier voice called out.

"Grimlock?" I said in surprise.

"Tell us what you have done!" The two voices yelled.

"After one of our meetings, in my bag was a crystal with instructions to put the coordinates of where Griselda was selling the item at. I didn't want her to die! I didn't know this would happen! Please don't kill me!" I pleaded.

"We were recording everything." A familiar voice said. I looked up and found Yolko and Caynz.

"But you guys died." I said confused.

"It was a trick. We used a teleport crystal as our armor's durability reached zero, making it look like we had died. We needed to figure out who killed Griselda." Caynz explaines. I nodded in response. That was very clever of them. Faking their deaths to lure out the killer.

"Well, what do we have here?" A voice from the forest surrounding us said. I turned to look at them but I couldn't.

"Paralysis?" I said noticing the effect symbol next to my HP.

"What should we do with them?" Another voice said.

"How about we make them fight to the death? The winner gets to die!" Another voice exclaimed happily. Yolko and Caynz were cowering in fear. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw three players cloaked in black with a tattoo on their wrist. They were part of the murder guild, Laughing Coffin.

 **Kirito's POV**

"I have to get to them! Before it's too late." I thought to myself. After my sandwhich exploded, I put the pieces together and figured out Yolko and Caynz weren't really dead. Since Yolko was still on Asuna's friend list, we figured out her, Caynz and Schmitt were at a hill on floor 19. While Asuna tried to find Grimlock, Sinon and I travelled on horseback to the hill. The hill was covered in fog and lined with trees without leaves. After a couple minutes, I saw the three former guild-mates at sword point of three red players. Sinon jumped off the horse and I unfortunately fell off like an idiot.

"Kirito? Sinon? How did you know we were here?" Yolko asked.

"Doesn't matter. The more people who are here, the more who die." One of the red players said.

"NOW!" I yelled to Sinon. In the blink of an eye, Sinon pulled out three throwing knives and knocked the weapons out of the red players hands. Yolko, Schmitt and Caynz backed away from them as soon as their weapons hit the ground.

"So, that is why they call you The Sharpshooter." Another of the red players said.

"I still have fifteen more knives and a dagger. You can leave alive or not leave at all, it is your choice." Sinon threatened the players. One of them wearing a mask looked at me.

"This is not the last you will hear from us." He said before him and his friends teleported out.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked Caynz, Schmitt and Yolko. They all nodded in response before starting to head back to the safe zone.

"Wait!" A feminine voice yelled from the forest. "I think I found who you were looking for" Asuna said revealing herself with a middle aged man at sword point.

"Grimlock?" Yolko said nervously.

"Hello." Grimlock said.

"You were right, Kirito. Grimlock was behind the whole thing." Asuna told us.

"Do you mean, Grimlock killed Griselda?" Schmitt asked.

"Not himself. But he hired those red players to do it for him." Asuna told him.

"But why? WHY DID YOU KILL GRISELDA?!" Yolko yelled at him.

"You see, we were not just married in the game, but in real life too. She was the ideal wife. We never fought once while in real life. But, when we entered this game, she changed. I was afraid of playing this death game but she was much happier in here. The Griselda I loved was gone! If I couldn't have her then I would settle for the memory of her and who could blame me?" Grimlock explained.

"No." Asuna stated. "You stopped loving her the moment you became selfish and possessive!" Asuna said. It was like a punch in the gut for Grimlock, from what I could see. Grimlock fell to his knees in defeat.

"We will take it from here." Schmitt said as Caynz and him picked up Grimlock and they, along with Yolko, headed back to town.

"Hey, Sinon. Who was that guy back there? The one with the mask." I asked.

"Um, XaXa, I think. Why?" Sinon said.

"Just wondering." I told her. Something about that XaXa just rubbed me the wrong way, and not just the fact that he kills people.

"Well, that solves that. Let's go." Asuna said. The three of us walked back in silence. They teleported to the Knights of the Blood Oath base and I went to my house on the 37th floor. I layed down on my bed and thought about what had happened to me since I got stuck in this death game. I was about to go to sleep when a message appeared in front of me.

"Friend Request!"

"Sinon wants to be your friend."

That's what the message read. At first, I thought she sent it to the wrong person. However, you need a player's full in-game name to friend them. No way this was an accident. I hesitantly hit the accept button and a message immediately was sent to me reading,

"We are going to arrest the remaining members of Laughing Coffin in 3 weeks. Heathcliff wants you to help out. Come to the meeting at the 4:00 PM this Friday if you want to help. -Sinon"

"This is going to end badly." I said to myself as I drifted off to sleep.

 **And it's done! Yay! Next chapter will be the assault team vs. Laughing Coffin, so that will be fun. Thanks for reading! Bye!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Laughing Coffin Assault**


	9. Laughing Coffin Assault

I **have nothing to say...**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"Attention everyone! The meeting will now begin!" A member of the Knights of the Blood Oath said. I saw him a few times during boss fights but didn't know his name. After a day of arguing with myself, I decided to go to the meeting Sinon told me about. Sure enough, she was next to Asuna and Heathcliff at the moniters displaying multiple members of Laughing Coffin. I zoned out a couple minutes in and only paid attention during the part about XaXa. Something told me that the two of us would fight each other during our assault on Laughing Coffin, and he wasn't going to let me live. The meeting took about three hours of the two major guilds, Knights of the Blood Oath and Holy Dragon Alliance, discussing the plans with a few other guilds, including Klein's. As they talked, I couldn't help but think about The Moonlit Black Cats, and about how they should be up there, discussing strategies. I tried to shake the thought out of my head but it wasn't until after the meeting, when Sinon came up to me, I finally had something else to think about.

"You didn't seem to be paying much attention." Sinon said with her arms crossed.

"You don't seem to hate my guts anymore." I said back.

"What gives you that idea?" Sinon said innocently.

"Nothing, friend." I said as I pulled up my friends list and pointed to her name.

"I only did that so you could know about the meeting." Sinon said blushing.

"Sure you did. Anyway, bye." I said.

"Where are you going?" Sinon said immediately.

"Why do you care? I thought you only sent me that friend request so I could know about the meeting." I teased.

"Well, umm, since you obviously didn't pay attention, I would have to explain the plan to you personally." Sinon said.

"Alright then, come on." I said.

"What?" Sinon asked.

"I just sat through a three hour long lecture. I'm going to get something to eat. You can come if you want." I explained.

"Fine, but you are paying." She said as the two of us walkes out together.

 **Nobody's POV**

"How long until they admit they like each other?" Klein asked Asuna.

"I give it less than a month." Asuna said.

/

"Here is your food." An NPC said handing Kirito and Sinon their food before walking away.

"So, we are going to all go throught the front entrance to their base." Sinon explained.

"Doesn't that seem a little, obvious?" Kirito said.

"We're not trying to be subtle." Sinon said.

"Fair enough." Kirito said as he ate some of his food.

"You and I will be fighting on the front lines so be careful. The Laughing Coffin members are ruthless." Sinon said.

"Since when do you fight on the front lines?" Kirito said, earning him a kick in the shin from Sinon. "Ow! I meant, that you usually use throwing knives and stay in the back." Kirito explained.

"Well, we're not trying to kill them, just arrest them. Throwing a knife in their throat doesn't seem like the best way to arrest someone." Sinon joked.

"True." Kirito said. The two talked for a few minutes about the assault before beginning to talk about random things.

"Hey, Kirito. Why haven't you joined a guild yet?" Sinon asked.

"Most of the time, party members just hurt a lot more than they help." Kirito said, earning another kick in the shin from Sinon. "All except you." Kirito clarified as he rubbed his shin.

"So, you are just, never going to join a guild?" Sinon said.

"Pretty much, yeah." Kirito said.

"Don't you get lonely?" Sinon asked.

"Not really. Why?" Kirito asked.

"No reason." Sinon responded sadly.

"You sure?" Kirito said.

"Yeah." Sinon said trying to fake a smile. After an hour of just talking, Sinon had to head back to the guild base and the two were leaving the restaurant.

"See you later." Kirito said as he started to head in the other direction.

"Kirito!" Sinon said causing him to turn around.

"Yeah?" Kirito said. Sinon then kissed him on the cheek and backed away.

"Thanks for today. I had fun." Sinon said as she ran back to the guild base leaving Kirito dumbstruck.

"What just happened?" He said to himself.

3 WEEKS LATER...

 **Kirito's POV**

Today was the day. Laughing Coffin's murders were going to stop today. I equipped all of my armor and my sword, Elucidator. After double checking to make sure I had enough healing crystals, I headed off to Laughing Coffin's base. By the time I got there, almost everyone was already battle ready. I spotted Sinon in the front of the group and decided I would talk to her later about what happened after the meeting. After a few minutes, Heathcliff started speaking.

"I just want to say, be careful. Laughing Coffin is a crafty bunch of players so keep your guard up." Heathcliff said. Then, surprisingly, the doors to their base were easily opened and we all marched inside. Immediately, I noticed something wasn't right. There was no guards or members of the guild to be seen. I heard footsteps faintly and, suddenly, at least 50 members of Laughing Coffin jumped down from a cliff, over looking where we were and killed three of the players on the assault team. I was attacked by a player with a pale white face and a murderous look in his eye. In the span of less than ten seconds, the room went from dead quiet, to the yelling of other players and swords clashing.

"So, you're the famous Kirito." The pale player said to me as our swords clashed. "I here your a big shot solo player. You got a pretty big bounty on your head, you know." He said to me. I didn't focus on what he was saying. I just kept slashing my sword and he did the same. "DIE!" The pale player shouted as he stabbed at me with all his power. I just barely dodged it, but my health did drop a few points. I didn't know what compelled me to do it. Maybe it was the deaths he had caused, or the countless other players dying around me, but I slashed my sword through his abdomen and he bursted in polygons. Another Laughing Coffin member did the same and I slashed right through him as I did the other guy. Another member took his place, but this time, it was XaXa. We didn't say anything to each other. All we did was parry each others blows and try to get a slash in. After who knows how long, I knocked XaXa to the floor and I looked around. All the fighting had stopped. Every remaining Laughing Coffin member was being taken away. Godfree took XaXa and handcuffed him, forcing him to teleport to a jail cell.

"I just killed two people." I said to myself. I looked around again and saw that Sinon, Asuna and Klein were all still alive. I completely forgot to talk to Sinon and just started walking back to my house. Once I got home, I got a message from Sinon reading:

"You okay? You didn't say anything after the fight and just left. Good news, Laughing Coffin is officially over! Bye. -Sinon"

I trashed the message after reading it. I just sat on my bed for an hour with only one thought in my head,

"I just killed two people."

 **Poor Kirito. I only had a few clips of this part throughout SAO2 so I had to make some stuff up. Anyway, thanks for reading! Bye!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **The Heart's Warmth**


	10. The Heart's Warmth

**LINK START!**

 **Nobody's POV**

"Here you go!" A pink-haired blacksmith said, handing Sinon a new set of knives.

"Thanks, Lis. Here's the money." Sinon said handing her the money.

"So, when is the next boss fight?" Lis asked.

"Next week. I have to train my ass off for it so I'll see you later!" Sinon said leaving the shop. Lis sighed and went back to forging a sword.

/

"There we go!" Lis said to herself as she finished a new sword. She was beginning to set out the materials for another, but the bell on her door rang, indicating someone had just come in. "Perfect!" Lis said to her reflection after checking herself in the mirror. She entered the main room and said, "Welcome to Lisbeth's Blacksmith's Shop!".

"Oh hey. I was wondering if you did custom orders." A dark-haired player dressed in black asked her.

"He doesn't look like he has enough money." Lisbeth thought. "Yes, but it's very expensive." Lisbeth said.

"I'm not worried about the cost. I just need the best sword you can make." The player said.

"I make a lot of different swords, uhhh..." Lisbeth began.

"Kirito. My name is Kirito." Kirito finished.

"Okay, Kirito. I make a lot of different swords, so if you could give me a certain quality, that would help." Lisbeth said.

"I'm looking for a sword either better, or the same quality as this." Kirito said, pulling out his sword.

"T-This is an Elucidator. This is the best weapon you can get from a monster drop." Lisbeth said in awe.

"So, can you make something better or what?" Kirito asked. Lisbeth stood there and thought for a minute.

"Try this. It's the best sword I ever forged." Lisbeth responded, handing him a thin sword. Kirito swung it around a couple times.

"I don't know. It's a little light." Kirito stated.

"It should be. I used a speed type metal to forge it." Lisbeth said.

"If it's cool with you, I would like to test the sword." Kirito said.

"Test it?" Lisbeth asked.

"You know, check its durability." Kirito stated as he got ready to hit his own sword with Lisbeth's.

"What are you doing? If you break your sword then I'm not responsible!" Lisbeth said.

"Alright then." Kirito said as he activated a sword skill and slashed at his own sword. However, Lisbeth blade was the one that shattered.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Lisbeth screamed in horror as her best sword was destroyed.

"Uh oh." Kirito said to himself.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?" Lisbeth yelled as she picked him up by the shirt.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think your sword was going to break like that!" Kirito told her.

"So, you are saying my sword was worse than you thought!" Lisbeth shouted.

"Yeah, pretty much." Kirito said.

"For your information, if I had the right materials, then I could make a sword that would shatter yours into a million tiny pieces!" Lisbeth said as she let go of him.

"That sounds like the sword I'm looking for." Kirito responded.

"Alright, smart guy! If you can help me get the materials, I will make the sword." Lisbeth said.

"Okay then. What materials?" Kirito asked.

"A dragon on the west side of floor 55 drops it." Lisbeth explained.

"Got it, see you." Kirito said as he began to leave.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Lisbeth asked.

"To get the materials." Kirito said plainly.

"Well, I'm going with you!" Lisbeth said confidently.

"I can handle this on my own." Kirito told her.

"Well, you need an expert blacksmith in order to get the materials from the dragon." Lisbeth said.

"Sure you do." Kirito said sarcastically. "If your going to come, then keep quiet and stay out of my way." Kirito said.

/

"It's freezing up here." Lisbeth complained as the two walked through snow.

"Maybe you should of stayed back at the shop then." Kirito stated.

"I didn't know it was going to be this freaking cold!" Lisbeth said before getting a jacket thrown at her.

"Take that." Kirito said.

"Won't you be cold?" Lisbeth asked.

"No, it's you who really needs it." Kirito responded.

"If you're trying to piss me off, then it's working." Lisbeth said as she put on the jacket.

/

"Okay, so the dragon should come out soon." Lisbeth explained.

"Alright, do you have a teleport crystal ready?" Kirito asked.

"Yeah." Lisbeth responded.

"When the dragon appears, I want you to hide behind those crystals. Don't come out no matter what!" Kirito instructed.

"You can't take on that dragon by yourself!" Lisbeth protested.

"I can and I will. Now get behind those crystals!" Kirito shouted. Lisbeth quietly hid behind them as the dragon started moving and attacking Kirito.

"Watch out for its breath!" Lisbeth called out. Kirito easily deflected the dragon's attacks with his sword. Kirito had jumped over to the dragon and began slicing at its back. Kirito deflected every attack the dragon dished out and attacked again. "Stop messing around and just finish it off!" I yelled as I walked out from the crystal.

"No, stop!" Kirito yelled, but it was too late as the dragon had already targeted and dived at Lisbeth. Lisbeth was knocked down a giant hole in the ground by the dragon's attack, and began plummeting to the ground. She had closed her eyes and prepared to die when she hit the ground, but a voice called out to her.

"Grab on, Lis!" Kirito yelled. She opened her eyes to see Kirito falling next to her. She grabbed his hand and the two hit the ground, only suffering half-HP loss.

"Are you okay?" Lisbeth asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Here, drink this health potion to be safe." Kirito told her as he handed her a health potion and began drinking his own.

"Where are we?" Lisbeth asked.

"A hole." Kirito responded.

"I know that! But, how do we get out?" Lisbeth said.

"There has to be some exit." Kirito said.

"What if this is a death pit, where if a player falls in, they can't escape until death?" Lisbeth said nervously.

"It could be." Kirito said casually.

"You're not helping!" Lisbeth yelled.

/

"Hey Kirito, can I ask you something?" Lisbeth asked from her sleeping bag.

"Ask away." Kirito responded.

"Why did you jump in here to save me?" Lisbeth asked.

"Well, I can't just sit by and watch somebody else die. I'd rather die along with them than do nothing." Kirito answered.

"Wow. You really are an idiot." Lisbeth said sarcastically. Kirito just chuckled at her comment and fell asleep. Lisbeth lied awake thinking of what Kirito said. "Why do I feel this way?" She thought. "Well, I think you're right. It's better to die with somebody than just let them die. Sometimes you might even have to kill someone else to keep others safe, you know?" Lisbeth said.

/

Lisbeth slowly woke up and looked around the room to find that they were still stuck in the hole and Kirito was on the other side of the room, digging something up.

"What are you doing?" Lisbeth asked.

"Catch." Kirito said as he threw an object at Lisbeth. She scanned the item and gasped.

"This is the material..." Lisbeth began.

"That we came all this way here for. The dragon eats the material and it breaks down in its stomach creating that." Kirito explained.

"Huh?" Lisbeth asked.

"That's dragon poop." Kirito said plainly.

"EWW!" Lisbeth yelled as she threw the material to Kirito.

"I would say that this is the dragon's nest." Kirito thought aloud.

"Since dragons are nocturnal, does that mean that the dragon will be here soon?" Lisbeth asked worriedly. As if on cue, the dragon swooped down the hole and would've hit Lisbeth if Kirito hadn't jumped in a pushed her out of the way. Kirito started running up the walls with Lisbeth in his arms, then he jumped off and stabbed the dragon in the back as the it started flying out of the hole. As soon as the dragon reached the surface, Kirito released his sword and the two started falling toward the ground. "HEY KIRITO!" Lisbeth yelled over the sounds of the wind.

"WHAT?" Kirito asked.

"DON'T FREAK OUT, BUT I THINK I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU!" Lisbeth yelled.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Kirito questioned.

"NEVERMIND!" Lisbeth yelled as she pulled him into a midair hug.

/

"Here it is, the best sword I can make!" Lisbeth said as she handed Kirito the newly finished sword. "It's called Dark Repulser." Lisbeth explained. Kirito picked up the sword and swung it a few times.

"It's great!" Kirito said.

"Really?" Lisbeth said hopefully.

"Yeah! Anyway, how much do I owe you?" Kirito asked.

"Well, actually. I was wondering. Instead of payment in col, I want to be your exclusive blacksmith." Lisbeth said.

"Exclusive blacksmith?" Kirito questioned.

"Whenever you need repairs or a new weapon, you come to me." Lisbeth explained. Before Kirito could answer, a red and white figure came running through the door.

"Lisbeth! Are you okay? Where were you last night? What happened?" The player said.

"Calm down, Asuna. I just got stuck while fighting an enemy." Lisbeth explained.

"Why were you fighting alone?" Asuna asked.

"I wasn't. I had his help." Lisbeth said pointing to Kirito.

"Kirito?" Asuna asked.

"ASUNA! You have to stop running off like a maniac! We have training to do!" A player dressed in the same clothes as Asuna said from the door.

"Hey, Sinon." Kirito said.

"Wait, you two know Kirito?" Lisbeth asked.

"Yeah. We are all on the assault team." Sinon explained.

"Oh." Lisbeth said partially putting her head down.

"Are you okay, Lis? Did Kirito do something to you?" Asuna said about ready to yell at Kirito.

"I didn't do anything!" Kirito countered.

"That's about as believable as Klein having a girlfriend IRL." Sinon said jokingly.

"Lisbeth, I'm sorry if Kirito did anything rude to you." Asuna apologized.

"Talk about rude, he comes into my store and the first thing he does is shatter my best sword." Lisbeth said.

"HAH! Classic!" Sinon laughed and Kirito just looked away in embarrassment.

"I have to go get some materials." Lisbeth said as she scurried out the door. "Hold down the fort while I'm gone." Lisbeth told them.

/

"You okay?" Kirito asked Lisbeth. Lisbeth just gasped as she was trying to hide under the bridge.

"How did you find me?" Lisbeth asked.

"I scanned the whole town from atop that building." Kirito explained.

"Figures that you would do something crazy." Lisbeth joked. "Anyway, I'm fine." She said.

"Good." Kirito said.

"Listen...just forget everything I said." Lisbeth said with tears in her eyes.

"No." Was all Kirito said.

"Huh?" Lisbeth said looking up at Kirito.

"Back when we were stuck in the hole, you helped me resolve the guilt I had been feeling for a while. Thank you." Kirito said. "And I would be happy to have you be my personal blacksmith." Kirito said. Lisbeth's face lit up and she just turned around.

"Everyday after battle, I will repair your armor and weapons. You just keep fighting and promise me something." Lisbeth said.

"What?" Kirito asked.

"Put and end to this world." Lisbeth said plainly.

 **There we go. This is another episode I didn't like very much, mostly because I hate the shipping Kirito x Lisbeth. Whatever, it's written and done. Like usual, there were some parts I cut out and put in because I can. Fun fact: I originally planned for Sinon and Agil to save Kirito and Lisbeth from the hole because Kirito and Sinon bet each other to see who could make a better sword, Agil or Lisbeth. Both teams would be going for the same material and it would of ended with Kirito winning due to Sinon's lack of knowledge with swords. I just scrapped the idea because I had no idea how Agil and Sinon would get the two out of the hole. Oh well, I kind of like the way this chapter turned out regardless. Thanks for reading!**


	11. Ragout Rabbit Meat

**LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

The sounds of my sword clashing against a Gleaming Grunt's sword (a common enemy on this floor) rang throughout the room. I started running, hoping to surprise attack with a sword skill. The Gleaming Grunt chased me with a movement sword skill and slashed at me. I dodged out of the way and activated my "Vertical Slash" skill to send its weapon flying out of its hands. I then used a "Quadruple Strike" skill to finish it off. I breathed heavily as I sheathed my sword and began walking back toward my house. Akihiko Kayaba was still out there. Probably, watching all of us as we struggle to get through the game.

/

I was in the middle of a forest when I heard a rustling noise in the bushes.

"Your kidding me." I said as I noticed what monster it was. A Ragout Rabbit. I pulled out two throwing picks from my jacket and activated a sword skill for each. I threw one into a tree to divert the monster's attention, then threw the other one straight at it while it was attempting to jump away. The pick pierced right through the Ragout Rabbit and a window popped up in front of me.

"EXP: 2000/ Col: 300/ Items: 3"

The EXP and Col were the average amounts of what I normally get, however I usually only get 2 items when I beat a Ragout Rabbit. I got a "Rabbit Hide" which can be used for swords (for some reason), "Rabbit Ears" which can be used to brew some potions (for some reason) and a...RAGOUT RABBIT MEAT!?

/

"This...THIS IS AN S CLASS RARE ITEM!" Agil said in amazement.

"Yeah." I said as calmly as I possibly could.

"I've never seen one before! Anyway, I'll buy it, but you already have all the money you need. Wouldn't you rather have it for dinner?" Agil asked.

"Yeah, but who knows if I'll ever get another one." I told him.

"So, keep it." Agil responded.

"What's the point? Besides, you need to have a crazy high cooking skill to prepare a dish like that." I said.

"True, if we tried we would probably just burn it." Agil said sadly. I heard a tiny bell ring, which signified that somebody had entered the shop.

"Hi Kirito." A familiar voice said. Asuna. I turned around to be met with Asuna, Sinon and another, much older looking player.

"I found my chef." I whispered.

"What about a chef?" Sinon asked.

"Um, Asuna, I was wondering what you cooking skill was at." I told her.

"Totally maxed it out last week!" Asuna said proudly. Both Agil and I gasped at this response.

"Okay then, I need a favor." I told her as I showed her my Ragout Rabbit Meat.

"You...You got a Ragout Rabbit?" Asuna said surprised.

"Damn! Nice going, Kirito!" Sinon said happily.

"All you got to do is cook it for me." I told Asuna.

"Okay, fine. But Sinon and I get some too." Asuna demanded.

"Yeah sure." I said. "Sorry buddy, looks like I'm keeping it." I said to Agil.

"Okay, but you can at least let me taste it right? I thought we were tight man!" Agil complained.

"I'll write you a review, but only two pages." I said leaving the store.

"Man, that dude is cold." Agil sighed.

"Tell me about it." Sinon said as she left the shop with Asuna and I.

"So, where are we going to cook it?" Asuna asked.

"Um?" I said. The truth is, I didn't own any cookware. I just buy all my food. I have enough col for it and no point wasting time getting up a skill like cooking when I could be getting more speed or attack abilities.

"I'm guessing not your place." Sinon said snickering.

"Since this is a special dish, we can eat at our place." Asuna said. "You can go now, Kuradeel." Asuna told the other member of their guild who was following us.

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to go home with such a shady character." The player, who I assumed was Kuradeel, said.

"I don't know the full extent of his shadiness, but I do know he is ten levels higher than you." Asuna told him.

"Are you saying that I'm inferior to him?" Kuradeel asked angrily.

"You do realize that he is the same guy who took out the floor one boss, has been fighting solo for nearly two years on the front lines, helped solve the safe zone murder mystery, owns the one of a kind blade, Elucidator AND killed two members of Laughing Coffin during the assault." Sinon said. I cringed a little when she mentioned Laughing Coffin.

"I get it. You're one of those beaters." Kuradeel said angrily.

"So what if I am?" I asked.

"You two shouldn't go with him. His kind cares only for themselves." Kuradeel pleaded.

"Kuradeel! I order you to go home." Asuna said before dragging me away with Sinon close behind.

/

"Who was that guy? He was trashing me like crazy." I asked.

"He's are new bodyguard. Since apparently, we aren't able to take care of ourselves." Sinon said angrily.

"All higher-ups in the guild are required to have bodyguards now." Asuna said. "Ever since we became the strongest guild in the game, things have changed." Asuna said clearly deep in thought.

"Anyway, we're here!" Sinon said excitedly as the three of us walked in.

"Whoa." I said in amazement at their giant house. All I had was a cheap place on floor 56.

"Cool, right?" Sinon asked.

"Yeah. How much did all of this cost?" I asked.

"About 4 million col." Asuna said.

"Which you still owe me 50000 col for!" Sinon yelled.

"I'll pay you back...eventually." Asuna said before leaving toward what I assumed was the kitchen.

"So, how are you Kirito?" Sinon said trying to make small talk. Once I made sure Asuna was out of hearing range, I asked a question I have been avoiding for a while.

"I'm good. I just want to know what was up with you after the meeting for Laughing Coffin?" I asked.

"Oh, that." She laughed nervously. "Well, you see..." She began before getting cut off by Asuna.

"Okay, I'm ready!" Asuna said in a cooker's outfit. I don't know what was more surprising. The extremely convenient timing of Asuna or the fact that she was actually wearing an outfit specifically for cooking. "How would you guys like the food prepared?" She asked.

"I am going to leave that to the chef." I said not knowing anything about cooking.

"Alright, how about a stew?" Asuna said to herself. Sinon's eyes practically lit up when Asuna said that. Asuna quickly cut up the ingredients (which was especially easy since all she had to do was touch them with her knife once) and put them in a pot. She put said pot in the oven and set a timer.

"I have no idea how any of this works." I said.

"Me neither, but the food is awesome!" Sinon said as she started daydreaming.

"I think Sinon might be addicted to my food." Asuna joked.

"Don't try to deny it, the food is amazing!" Sinon retaliated.

"I will have to see for myself tonight since someone (Asuna) knocked my sandwich out of my hand before I could finish." I said remembering when we all ate on the bench.

"So, I was thinking off making some side dishes." Asuna said before walking over to the counter and got out more ingredients. Sinon was practically drooling at this point.

"I think we should go in the other room before Sinon drowns us." I said dragging Sinon out of earshot of Asuna. "Back to what you were saying earlier." I told her.

"I guess, it just kind of seemed right at the moment." Sinon lied.

"Don't give me that bull crap. We both know you're lying." I told her.

"Okay, so maybe I kind of..." She said before beginning to mumble.

"Kind of?" I asked.

"Are you really that dense?!" She yelled.

"What are you guys talking about?" Asuna asked coming up from behind us causing both Sinon and I to freeze. (GOD DAMMIT, ASUNA!)

"Hi, Asuna." Sinon said sheepishly.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"I live here." Asuna said plainly.

"Wow, would you look at the time! I think I have to go and not be here." Sinon said before rushing to the other room.

"Hey!" I said before running after Sinon.

"What the hell?" Asuna asked herself before chasing after the two. When she arrived, both Sinon and I were sitting quietly at the dinner table. Before she could question us, the timer for the stew went off. (So much convenience.)

"It's ready!" Sinon shouted in delight. In less than ten minutes, Asuna, Sinon and I had already finished all the food Asuna had prepared.

"In all two years we have been here, this is the first time I had S class food. I'm glad I survived long enough to eat it." Asuna said happily.

"Ditto." Sinon said.

"So, are you guys ready for the boss fight in a couple days?" I asked.

"Yeah, the only problem is that there is a less people on the assault team compared to floor 73." Asuna said sadly.

"It seems like most people these days just don't care about completing the game." Sinon told me. It's true. A ton of players have given up, and just began living semi-normal lives here in Aincrad.

"It's strange. Sometimes it feels like I have lived here my whole life." Asuna said quietly.

"I know what you mean. There are some days that I don't even think about the real world." I told them. "But, what do I know? I just mess around as a solo player." I joked.

"And you're okay with that?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, most party member just get in the way instead of helping." I said. I instantly regretted it as it earned me a kick in the shin from Sinon AND Asuna.

"You said it before, and I kicked you. Did you expect the outcome to be different this time?" Sinon asked rhetorically.

"And as I said, all except you two." I said trying to help my situation.

"Then why don't we all team up again?" Asuna proposed. I nearly fell over and Sinon did a spit take when Asuna said that. "What?" Asuna asked.

"Didn't you hate my guts a while ago?" I asked.

"Yes, but Sinon stopped so I decided to give it a shot." Asuna said innocently. She sent me a party request and I just sat there dumbfounded.

"Don't you two have to train for your guild?" I asked.

"We already passed the recommended level for this floor." Asuna stated.

"Well, what about your bodyguard?" I questioned.

"We can just ditch him." Sinon said joining in. I sat there for a few seconds before hitting the accept button.

/

"Where the hell are they?" I asked myself. I was standing next to a statue where we agreed to meet the previous night. Suddenly, a blue light appeared a few meters away, which meant a player was teleporting here. Sure enough, Sinon and Asuna came racing from the portal and hid behind me. "What's happening?" I asked. Another blue light appeared, this time, it was Kuradeel. He sighed and walked over to the two girls behind me.

"I wish you two would stop being so difficult and just come back to headquarters with me." Kuradeel said.

"We won't be going anywhere, especially not with you!" Sinon yelled.

"And what was with creeping around our house that early in the morning?" Asuna asked. I didn't even know what to say to that.

"You two have a habit of leaving without warning. I am ordered to keep an eye on you two at all times." Kuradeel stated.

"Not at our house, you idiot!" Sinon yelled.

"Hey, listen. I'm going to be borrowing your commanders for the day, so you're just going to have to deal with that." I said. Kuradeel just stood there giving me and weird look before continuing.

"You got a big mouth there kid. I'm just going to give you one chance to prove that you are more capable than me." Kuradeel said angrily. I looked down and saw a duel request. I accepted with a first strike-KO. (Whoever lands the first hit, wins.)

"This isn't going to take long." I boasted.

"Commanders, move to a safe distance while I prove that I am the only one who can guard you." Kuradeel said drawing his sword. I drew my own sword and got into position. Once the match begun, the two of us immediately used a sword skill and charged at each other. Kuradeel tried to slash at me but I easily dodged and aimed for his shoulder. He barely blocked the blow. The two of us then used a movement sword skill which landed us on separate sides of the plaza, with Kuradeel's blade in half. "But how?" Kuradeel said as his blade exploded and I won the match.

"That was embarrassing." Sinon said quietly.

"I-I don't know he did it but he cheated. It must be some kind of trick. How else could he of shattered my sword so easily?" Kuradeel asked.

"Kuradeel! You are to report back to headquarters and tell Heathcliff EXACTLY what happened." Asuna demanded. Kuradeel shot me one final glare before heading out.

"Okay, now let's go!" Sinon said trying to lift the mood.

/

Sinon threw a knife at the Gleaming Grunt's sword arm, disarming it allowing Asuna enough time to use a "Linear" sword skill and knock the enemy back.

"SWITCH!" Asuna yelled. I ran in there and used a "Vertical Slash" against the enemy before Asuna and I both used a "Quadruple Strike" at the same time, draining most of the enemy's HP. The Gleaming Grunt attempted to get away, but Sinon easily hit him in the back of the head with a throwing knife.

"Fighting is a lot easier when you have teammates who actually can fight." I thought.

/

The three of us had been exploring the dungeon for a couple hours. I had been making a map of the dungeon for the assault team while Asuna and Sinon kept an eye out for any monsters. Sinon nudged me in the side, which I assumed meant an enemy was near so I drew my sword.

"No, look." Sinon said pointing to a set of gigantic iron doors. The boss doors.

"Should we check it out?" Asuna asked.

"Are you crazy!?" Sinon asked.

"It's the only way to know what we are up against." I responded.

"You guys are crazy!" Sinon protested.

"Just get a teleport crystal ready." I told her. We all pulled one out, Sinon more hesitantly, and opened up the boss doors. Fire was magically created for the totems, followed by the boss rising up from the ground. The boss was a huge ram-human like thing with four health bars.

It's name was Gleam Eyes.

 **WOW! That was a long chapter! I also realized I never put this chapter's name in the last chapter's ending thing. Oh well. I just want to thank everybody for the support they have shown this fic. As of right now, I believe this is my most popular. Even though I only have 4. Regardless, I think that this is the best chapter yet! Thanks for reading!**


	12. The Gleam Eyes

**LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

The boss' name was Gleam Eyes. It had a ram-like head and a huge sword. Before we could do anything, Gleam Eyes had already targeted us and attempted to slash us in two.

"RUN!" I heard Sinon call out. Asuna and I did not hesitate to follow Sinon's orders, and the three of us ran out of the boss room, and at least a quarter of the way back where we came in. As we left, I could hear the sound of the iron doors closing as Gleam Eyes banged on the barrier that kept him from leaving the boss room.

/

"That was a close one." Sinon said breathing deeply.

"Yeah, we're going to need a lot of tanks to take out that boss." Asuna said.

"From the looks of it, Gleam Eyes' sword is going to hurt bad if it makes contact with a player. That's not even counting his special moves. We should bring at least 10 shield-users." I told them.

"Shield-users, huh?" Asuna said questionably.

"Yeah, so what?" I asked.

"I've always thought that the best advantage of using a one-handed sword, was that you could also carry a shield. I don't use one since it will slow me down." Asuna said.

"Whatever. I don't need a shield." I said trying to get her to stop questioning me.

"And why aren't you using the sword you commissioned from Lis? Very suspicious." Asuna said devilishly. I just avoided eye contact until Sinon's stomach growled.

"I guess we were so focused on beating the dungeon, we didn't notice we skipped lunch." Sinon said.

"I guess since we are already here, we can have lunch now." Asuna said as she took three sandwiches out of her inventory.

"Did you make them yourself?" Sinon and I asked.

"Yes." Asuna said handing each of us the food. Sinon and I immediately started eating while Asuna just stared at us dumbfounded.

"You know, if you sold this food, you could make a real killing." Sinon suggested.

"Really?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah. Wait, you can't sell it." I said.

"Why not?" Asuna asked.

"Then, there would be none left for us." I joked.

"True." Sinon said.

"My god, you guys are so greedy." Asuna muttered. Suddenly, there was blue light coming from the other side of the room. A player was coming by here. However, it just turned out to be Klein and his guild.

"Huh? Hey, Kirito!" Klein greeted.

"Hi Klein." I said back. All of a sudden, Klein pulled me toward him.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?! You are supposed to be a solo player, remember?" Klein said gesturing to Asuna and Sinon.

"We're just teaming up for this dungeon, Klein. I'm not joining a guild or anything." I reassured him.

"Nice to see you too, Klein." Sinon said sarcastically.

"Hey there! I see you and Kirito made up." Klein said referring to the (one-sided) conflict between us after the first boss battle.

"He just comes in handy sometimes." Sinon joked.

"Yeah. I'd imagine after being the sole survivor of his gui-" Klein began. I knew what he was going to say. I couldn't think of anything else, so I just very casually hit him in the back of the head. "Ow! What the hell, man?" Klein asked.

"Never mention the guild." I whispered to him.

"You know it's not nice to keep secrets." Asuna said with her hands on her hips. Before either of us could respond, another blue light emitted from the same place where Klein and his guild member came in from. It was the Aincrad Liberation Force, the guild that runs the lower floors.

"Take a break." The leader of the troops said. "Is the area ahead clear?" The troop leader asked us.

"Yeah. We have a map of the complete area leading up to the boss." Asuna told him.

"Good. Then hand over that map." The leader instructed.

"Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass mapping is?" Klein asked rhetorically.

"We share our information AND resources with the citizens in this game so they can all leave as soon as possible! And we don't charge a thing for it! Therefore, it is your duty to cooperate with us!" The leader demanded.

"Fine. I was going to go public with the map when we got back anyway." I said transferring the map data to his character.

"Good, then we will be on our way." The leader said as he started walking toward the boss with his troops.

"If you're going after the boss, then I wouldn't recommend it." I told him.

"Nonsense!" The leader said as the entire army marched away.

"Who was that guy?" Klein asked.

"Kobatz. One of the top officers in the Aincrad Liberation Force." Asuna explained.

"Should we go after him?" Sinon asked.

"With the preparations he made, or rather, the lack of preparations he made, the group can't beat the boss." Asuna said.

"Then, let's go." Klein said as he headed, with his guild, in direction of Kobatz. Asuna, Sinon and I ran ahead of them.

/

"AAAAHHHHH!" One of the troops yelled in pain as Gleam Eyes brought his sword down on the soldier chest, ending his life.

"Dammit!" Sinon said to herself. Another one of the troops yelled in pain, a familiar one. Kobatz had landed right at our feet.

"How is it possible?" Kobatz said as he exploded into millions of polygons.

"What do we do?" Klein asked as his guild caught up to us.

"I don't know, but we can't just sit here and do nothing!" Sinon yelled.

"If we go in there now, we are basically committing suicide." Asuna told her friend. Asuna was right. All we had was roughly a dozen players, not nearly enough to beat a boss with that high of a level.

"Use your teleport crystals!" I yelled to the remaining troops.

"They don't work." One of them said. I just froze at that sentence. It was just like with the Moonlit Black Cats. They couldn't escape, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to help. Well, there was that one thing I could do. Before I had time to consider it, Sinon ran straight into the boss room.

"SINON!" Asuna called out as she ran after Sinon. I followed them a second later.

"What the hell?" Klein asked himself as he ran in after us. Asuna used a "Linear" skill, followed by Klein using "Downward Slash" and me using "Quadruple Strike". All the while Sinon kept throwing knives and getting in small cuts with her dagger. After about 5 times of doing that, Gleam Eyes' health had barely lowered.

"Now what?" Asuna asked. I looked around me. Sinon, Asuna and Klein were all at about half-health and the troops were nearly dead.

"Dammit just use it already!" I thought to myself. "Give me ten seconds!" I yelled to my friends. I started frantically searching through my inventory for "Dark Repulser". I eventually found it and equipped it to my back. I charged up a "Vertical Slash" with "Elucidator" and ran toward Gleam Eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Klein yelled to me. I paid him no mind as I slashed at Gleam Eyes. He easily parried my blow, which is when I unsheathed "Dark Repulser". With the two in hand, I slashed at him, one slice after another.

"Here goes nothing. STARBURST STREAM!" I yelled as I activated the special skill, and unleashed a 50-hit combo against the boss, each hit more powerful than the last. When the skill was over, Gleam Eyes and myself had very low HP. I decided to take the risk and try and finish him off with a "Vertical Slash". Our blades clashed against each other, causing sparks to fly against both of us. With a swing of my two swords, I finished off Gleam Eyes.

"KIRITO!" I heard Sinon yell. I looked up at my health bar in surprise, it was dropping quickly. "KIRITO!" Sinon yelled again. By the time she reached me, it was too late.

My HP had hit zero.

 **Nobody's POV**

Sinon, Asuna and Klein all started in horror as Kirito exploded into a million polygons. The sign of death.

"KIRITO! Don't go!" Sinon yelled to the spot where Kirito had died. She had tears in her eyes as she yelled Kirito's name.

"Klein! The revival item!" One of Klein's guild mates said to him.

"You're right!" Klein said. In less than two seconds, Klein pulled out a bottle from his inventory, and splashed it on the Kirito's death spot. The polygons in the air that represented Kirito started returning to where he had died. Sinon started wiping the tears out of her eyes as she saw Kirito materialize in front of her.

"Kirito?" Sinon questioned. After Kirito had fully returned, he took a deep breath and very slowly started getting up.

"What...happened?" Kirito asked. He was then hugged by Sinon suddenly.

"You were dead! Don't do that ever again!" She said with tears in her eyes.

"I used the revival item you gave me." Klein explained.

"Revival item?" Asuna asked.

"From the Christmas boss two years ago." Klein said.

"You kept it all this time?" Kirito asked.

"You said that if a friend ever died in front of me someday, to revive them with that item." Klein said. Kirito just smiled as he remembered that day.

-FLASHBACK-

"Here it is." Kirito said throwing Klein an item.

"This is the revival item? Why are you giving it to me?" Klein asked.

"Read the item description." Kirito told him.

"This item must be used...WITHIN TEN SECONDS?" Klein asked in surprise.

"If a friend ever dies in front of you someday, revive them with that." Kirito instructed.

-END OF FLASHBACK-

"I remember, Nicholas the Renegade." Asuna said.

"Yeah. Anyway, your not off the hook yet, Kirito. What the hell was that?" Klein asked.

"An extra skill I picked up. Dual-wielding." Kirito told him.

"COOL! Dude, are there prerequisites?" Klein asked.

"If I knew, I would've already told everybody." Kirito said. "I was just scrolling through my skill list one day, and there it was." Kirito explained.

"Looks like you got a unique skill. Nice going, Kirito! So, I'm going to open up the warp gate." Klein told him.

"I'm going to let my health regenerate a bit." Kirito said.

"Okay, you coming, Asuna?" Klein asked.

"Huh? Yeah, sure." Asuna said as she hesitantly left the room with Klein, his guild member and the remaining troops leaving Sinon and I all alone.

 **Kirito's POV**

"You reckless idiot!" She scolded me with tears in her eyes.

"I wasn't the one who ran in first, was I?" I joked.

"Kirito, I'm leaving the guild." Sinon stated.

"Why?" I asked even though I was pretty sure I already knew.

"I want to travel with you again." She said. I just sat there in shock.

"Sinon-" I began. I was cut off by Sinon, pressing her lips against mine. After a few seconds, she pulled away.

"I don't want to lose you again, Kirito." Sinon said resting her head against my chest.

"I'm not going anywhere." I assured her. After a while, I finally got up and the two of us headed toward the warp gate. Something suddenly occurred to me. "That's what you were trying to tell me at Asuna's house." I said aloud. She was right, I was an idiot.

"Took you long enough!" Sinon said as she kissed my cheek, and we walked through the warp gate, hand in hand.

 **I SHIP IT SO MUCH! They are finally together! Yay! I always thought that the revival item should've been incorporated back into the story after Kirito killed Nicholas the Renegade. Speaking of which, I finally covered that in this story. The Moonlit Black Cats chapter was already super long, so I thought it would fit here. Also, I forgot the next chapter hint last chapter despite mentioning that in the author's note. I am an idiot. Thanks for reading.**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Heathcliff vs. Kirito**


	13. Heathcliff vs Kirito

**Kirito's POV**

"74th floor boss cleared yesterday by dual-wielding swordsman, Kirito with a 50-hit combo." Agil read from the newspaper.

"This whole thing is blowing up in my face. I have to find a new house since a ton of interviewers found out where I live." I complained.

"You said it would be our little secret, but you want a blabbed it to everyone." Lisbeth teased.

"Kirito!" Sinon yelled as she ran into Agil's shop. "We have a huge problem." Sinon said.

/

"Hello, Kirito. outside of boss fights, I don't think we have properly met. I am Heathcliff." The leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath said.

"So, what is this all about?" I asked.

"Kirito, as you know, the number of people willing to fight these days is dwindling. Which means that every guild member is precious, and here you are. trying to run away with one of our best." Heathcliff said gesturing to Sinon. "If you want Sinon, then you will have to use your dual blades to take her from us. If you win, then you and Sinon will be free to leave. However, if you lose, you will become a member of the Knights of the Blood Oath." Heathcliff said. I wanted to say no to the rules in fear of losing, but I knew that I had to at least try and beat Heathcliff. For Sinon.

"Fine. If you want to settle this with swords, then that's cool with me." I told him.

"Good. The duel will be this Saturday, so that will give each of us three days to prepare." Heathcliff explained.

"I know how time works." I said as I started walking out with Sinon in tow.

"Also, I apologize for the actions of Kuradeel yesterday." Heathcliff said.

"It's cool." I told him as I walked out of the room.

/

"You idiot!" Sinon said hitting me in the head. "How could you agree to a duel?" Sinon asked.

"I'm sorry, but it's not like he gave me much of a choice." I told her.

"I would've been fine just staying in the guild." Sinon told me.

"Too late to back out now." I said.

"You do know that Heathcliff's health has never gone down past yellow, right?" Sinon asked.

"Yeah." I responded. It was true, Heathcliff's health had never sank into yellow. No matter what enemy he was up against.

"I'm just worried about you having to join a guild." Sinon said softly.

"If I win, we travel together. If I lose, the we're in the same guild. It's kind of a win-win for you." I joked.

/

"Come get your tickets, now! The Knights of the Blood Oath's leader, Heathcliff versus dual-wielding Kirito!" A salesman yelled.

"I apologize for the crowd. I didn't expect our dual to blow up like this." Heathcliff said.

"Maybe I could get some of the earnings." I joked.

"No, but when if you lose you will join the guild." Heathcliff said as the duel request appeared in front of me. I selected the half-health duel. There were 4 types of duals. Time duels, where you have a certain time limit, first-strike duels, where the player who hits first wins, half-health duels, where two players fight until one of them reaches half-health and death duels, where two players enter the duel and one of them has to die in order for the match to end. Heathcliff and I went to opposite sides of the stadium and drew our swords.

"Here we go." I said to myself as the countdown hit zero. I rushed toward Heathcliff and attempted to hit him. He blocked my slice with his gigantic shield with the Blood Oath's guild symbol. I started swinging my swords in rapid succession to try and overwhelm Heathcliff, but still he blocked every slash. Heathcliff finally attempted to stab at me which I barely avoided. I tried a "Vertical Slash" on Heathcliff which hit part of his chest, but did very little damage to him thanks to Heathcliff's thick armor. Heathcliff quickly turned toward me and struck me with his sword. It didn't do much damage but I was caught off guard by Heathcliff's fast attack speed. I dodged out of the way of his next blow and jumped high up to use a "Downward Slash". My swords was mere centimeters away from his head, but he swung his shield at unimaginable speeds and knocked me right out of the air. His sword then glowed, meaning he was using a sword skill. "Holy Sword". It was Heathcliff's own unique skill. It allowed the payer to switch freely between incredibly high attack power, and incredibly high defense. Before I could dodge out of the way, his sword had pierced my shoulder, and the battle was over. Heathcliff had won.

/

"Don't you guys have anything less flashy?" I asked Sinon as I tried on my new guild uniform.

"Actually that is one of our less flashy outfits." Sinon told me. I sighed and collapsed on my new bed.

"I can't believe I'm in a guild." I said to nobody in particular.

"Why do you avoid guilds?" Sinon asked me. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided I should finally tell Sinon about the Moonlit Black Cats.

"It was a few months after the first floor boss fight. I saved a guild called the Moonlit Black Cats. They offered me a spot in their guild an I accepted, but they didn't know I was a beater at the time. I was in the guild for a couple months, but one day while raiding a dungeon, we were ambushed in a room where we couldn't use our teleport crystals. All of them died. When I told the guild leader about what happened, he committed suicide. After that, I never joined another guild." I told her. I hadn't realized it but sometime while recalling the events, some tears came out of my eyes. The events of that day replayed in my mind. Tetsuo, Ducker, Sasamaru and Sachi all getting impaled by the monster's axes, and Kieta's look as he yelled at me. Before my memories could play again, Sinon softly kissed me, and all the bad memories I had faded away. I grabbed onto her hand and we stayed that way until Asuna knocked on my door.

"Sinon, Kirito! The boss strategy meeting is starting, come on!" Asuna yelled. The two of us quietly made our way to the door to find Asuna waiting on the other side.

"Come on, Sinon! We can't be late." Asuna said as she ran off.

"Race ya!" Sinon said as she ran away from me.

"Oh you're on!" I yelled to her as I ran after my two friends.

 **Chapter 13 complete! Next chapter will be the other half of the episode, where Kirito goes on his first mission as a member of the Knight's of the Blood Oath. Soon enough, I will no longer have to follow the anime's plotline because this story is not lame and will not end on floor 75. Seriously, why did they stop 25 floors early?! I plan for this story to go all the way to floor 100! Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **One Last Member**


	14. One Last Member

**Kirito's POV**

"But he soloed a boss fight, he doesn't need an evaluation." Sinon protested to another member of the guild, Godfree, who told me that I had to go on a dungeon raid to "prove my skills" or whatever.

"I'm sorry but rules are rules. All new member have to be evaluated in order to participate in boss fights with the guild." Godfree told her for probably the fourth time.

"It's fine, Sinon." I finally said.

"Okay, we leave in a half-hour. Meet me at the gate on the north side of town." Godfree said before leaving.

"You know, you didn't have to make a big deal about it, Sinon. I'll only be gone for a few hours." I told her.

"I know, it's just..." Sinon began. "Never mind, you should probably go get ready." Sinon said.

"Um, okay?" I said heading toward my room.

"Hey Kirito!" A green-haired man greeted as I entered my room. My roommate, Dillon. All guild members were required to share a room.

"Hi Dillon." I said as I sat on my bed and started sorting through my inventory.

"Is Godfree making you do the evaluation test too?" Dillon asked.

"Yeah." I said equipping my standard guild uniform.

"Out of everyone in this guild, I don't get why you have to tested." Dillon remarked.

"Sinon thought the same thing." I told him.

"Oh yeah, third in command and your girlfriend." Dillon said devilishly. I kept searching through my inventory and tried to hide my blushing. "So, who is going with you guys?" Dillon asked changing the topic.

"Going with us?" I asked.

"Who's the third person? From what I heard, it is usually a higher-up, the one being tested and another guild member." Dillon told me.

"Well, Godfree never mentioned anything about a third person." I said. "Who did you go with on your test?" I asked out of sheer curiosity.

"Asuna and Crane." Dillon responded. I chuckled at the thought of Dillon and Asuna somehow working together. Dillon was reckless, like me, and more of a tank character while Asuna was fragile and fast. This was reflected in their personalities. Dillon loved to tease and seemed almost invincible to others, while Asuna was easy to piss off and would cut off your head in a instant. Although I did wonder why the blacksmith was going on a dungeon raid. "Well, good luck out there." Dillon told me as he headed out to wherever he went during the day.

/

"Great, you're here!" Godfree said smiling at me as I walked up to the gate. "Kuradeel here will be joining us today on the raid." He said.

"K-Kuradeel?!" I said in shock as Asuna and Sinon's bodyguard came out from behind the gate.

"Listen, I know you two didn't get off to a great start, but I think this will be a good chance for you two to make up." Godfree told us.

"I want to apologize for my actions a few days ago." Kuradeel said to me.

"It's fine." I said.

"Great, now let's go clear a dungeon!" Godfree said happily.

"Yeah." Kuradeel and I said half-heartedly.

/

Kuradeel, Godfree and I spent the next two hours walking and killing enemies but mostly walking toward the dungeon, and we still weren't there yet!

"This looks like a good spot to take a break." Godfree said as he sat down on a rock and pulled out some water from his pack. Kuradeel and I sat on another huge rock and Godfree tossed us each a lunch that the guild has supplied for the raid. Inside was just some water and a sandwich sold by NPC's on this floor. I tried to picture it being Asuna's food, or Sinon sitting next to me, discussing whatever we wanted like always. It didn't work. I just started drinking the water. After a few sips, I noticed the smug look on Kuradeel's face as I drank and immediately threw my drink in the air, causing its durability to go down to zero. I looked up at my health bar and the paralysis symbol showed up next to it. Godfree also fell to the ground. Kuradeel started laughing like a mad man as Godfree struggled to reach the healing crystals we packed.

"Now what do you think you are doing?" Kuradeel said as he stepped on Godfree's hand, preventing him from getting the crystals.

"What is this, Kuradeel?" Godfree asked weakly.

"A paralysis potion in the drinks. It was quite simple really." Kuradeel said as he raised his sword and plunged it into Godfree's back.

"AHH!" Godfree yelled in pain as the sword went deeper into his back.

"Die, die, DIE!" Kuradeel yelled as repeatedly stabbed Godfree over and over until he was nothing more than polygons in the air.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. All he did was take off some of his armor, revealing the Laughing Coffin symbol on his hand.

"So, here is my story." Kuradeel began as he stabbed his sword into my stomach. "We were attacked by a gang of red players. You two fought bravely but died, and I was able to defeat them and return home to tell the tale." Kuradeel said as he moved the sword around in my stomach.

"You...sick...bastard..." I said weakly as my health drained. Of all the days I don't think I need my auto-health regeneration skill on.

"Does it hurt, Kirito? Tell me how it feels to know you are about to die, and nobody will be here to know what really happened except me." Kuradeel taunted as my health sank into the red zone. "DIE!" Kuradeel yells as he prepares to stab his sword one more time to finish off the rest of my health.

"I'm sorry, Sinon." I whispered as Kuradeel stabbed downward with his sword. I braced for when my HP would go down to zero for good, however all I heard was Kuradeel cry out in pain.

"Heal!" A familiar voice said. My HP rose back up to full health as I heard the voice whisper, "I made it. Thank god, I made it." I opened my eyes and found Sinon looking over me and Kuradeel with a knife in his shoulder.

"I-I can explain. We were attacked by-" Kuradeel began before being cut off (literally) by Sinon as she sliced his wrist off with her dagger.

"Save it." She said.

"Okay! You win. I'll leave the guild. I'll never bother you again. I don't want to die!" Kuradeel pleaded. Sinon wasn't having any of his lies. She held her dagger to his neck and picked him up.

"I'll take it from here." I heard Asuna say. The paralysis was starting to wear off so I turned around and sure enough, Asuna was there with Kuradeel at sword point.

"I would watch where I point that." Kuradeel said as he used his own sword to disarm Asuna.

"Asuna!" Sinon yelled as she attempted to attack Kuradeel. Kuradeel knocked Sinon to the ground, leaving both girls defenseless. Asuna had pulled out a second rapier at this point however Kuradeel expected this and disarmed Asuna as well as knocked her to the ground in one move.

"SINON! ASUNA!" I yelled. With all my strength I charged up a sword skill and sliced right through Kuradeel.

"Dammit. You killed me." Kuradeel whispered as he exploded just as Godfree did.

/

I sat in my room for the rest of the day to think about what happened. Sinon suddenly opened my door and sat down next to me.

"Thank you for saving us." Sinon said. My mind was only focused on one thing at that moment. My sword had claimed another life.

"I-I killed someone." I said aloud. I hadn't completely gotten over the Laughing Coffin incident and this just reminded me of everything I felt that day.

"Kirito. If you hadn't of stopped Kuradeel, then Asuna and I might not of gotten back here." Sinon said to me. "Thank you." She repeated before kissing me. This time, it wasn't the surprise kiss from the boss room, but rather a passionate kiss that made all the bad memories go away. I knew at that moment, that I HAD to beat this game not only for me, but for Sinon. I wanted, no, NEEDED to meet her in the real world. All I had to do was look at her eyes and I could tell she felt the same.

"I love you, Sinon." I said.

"I love you too, Kirito." She told me.

 **I ship it so much! I cut out the scene where Kirito went back to Asuna/Sinon's house and well, let's not discuss what happened there. That entire scene in the anime just made me cringe. Don't worry, I will still have all of the chapter where Kirito and Asuna (Sinon for this story) go on a vacation from the guild. Also, Dillon is here. I just thought of him on the spot and decided to roll with it. Kirito described him pretty damn well in this chapter so I won't be redundant. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Vacation**


	15. Vacation

**Sinon's POV**

"Sinon. Wake up!" Asuna shouted in my ear causing me to jerk awake.

"Huh? What?" I questioned as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

"I wanted to tell you the news." Asuna said.

"What news?" I asked.

"Heathcliff said that the entire guild gets a three week vacation for making it this far!" Asuna said happily.

"If it's my vacation, then why did you wake me up?" I questioned.

"I didn't want you to be confused when you woke up." Asuna responded.

"I think I would survive a little confusion." I told her as I fell back asleep.

/

"Kirito! Where are you taking me?" I demanded as Kirito lead me somewhere while I was blindfolded.

"You'll see." Kirito said vaguely.

"That doesn't answer my question." I said.

"But, if I told you it wouldn't be a surprise." Kirito responded. I couldn't tell how long, but Kirito and I walked for a while. I couldn't even tell what floor we were on! "Okay! Take off the blindfold." Kirito instructed. I did as he said and saw a wooden cabin next to a lake in front of me.

"I'm confused." I told him.

"Since we have three weeks off, I figured we might as well have somewhere better to stay than an empty guild base. You like it?" Kirito asked.

"I love it!" I said happily kissing Kirito.

"Good. I already kind of paid for it and it would be weird if you said no." Kirito admitted.

/

"This is the most boring thing I have ever done in my life." Dillon said checking his watch for the 10th time that hour.

"Ditto." Kirito said.

"Would you two quit complaining?" Asuna asked. Kirito had said that we could do whatever I wanted today, so Asuna and I went shopping and forced him to come along. Kirito practically begged Dillon to come along so he wouldn't be alone.

"It's not that bad." I told them as Asuna and I went inside another shop. Kirito and Dillon groaned as we entered the shop.

"It's very bad." Kirito responded.

"Boohoo. You have to shop for a couple of hours." I teased.

"See what you got me into!" Dillon said angrily at Kirito.

"You didn't have to come." Kirito told him.

"If I didn't you would have held it against me forever." Dillon retaliated.

"You two are like brothers." Asuna joked.

/

"We're alive!" Dillon said happily as we finally finished shopping.

"Hallelujah" Kirito said.

"Now what?" Asuna asked us.

"I believe it is our turn to select an activity." Dillon told us.

"Sure. Go ahead." I said. That was a terrible mistake. Kirito and Dillon looked at each other with a sly look and smiled at us.

/

"Look out!" Kirito yelled to me as a club swung over my head.

"This was a terrible idea!" Asuna yelled.

"It's a great idea!" Dillon said as he held up his shield and blocked a blow. Kirito and Dillon had the bright idea to take on a mini-boss at the dungeon. It was simply named "The Minotaur". I was surrounded by tons of bull minions and had a huge club that it swung at us. He stood on two feet (hooves, I guess?), had horns and was incredibly strong.

"STARBURST STREAM!" Kirito shouted as he unleashed his unique skill on the boss. As Kirito attack, Dillon was blocking each of "The Minotaur's" attacks while Asuna jabbed at its feet and I dealt with the minions. After Kirito's attack was over, the boss was defeated.

"Finally." Asuna said as she fell to the ground in exhaustion. I sat down next to her and Dillon leaned against the wall. Kirito was looking through his inventory, presumably because of the last attack bonus.

"Next time we let you two pick, let's not challenge a boss. Okay?" I asked.

"Mini-boss." Dillon corrected.

"Whatever." Asuna said.

/

"Why would you think to take on a floor boss all by yourself?" Dillon asked Kirito as we told him the story of Gleam Eyes.

"What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?" Kirito asked angrily. The four of us were at the top of a large hill back on floor one. This was the same hill that Kirito, Klein and I all visited on the first day of this death game.

-FLASHBACK-

"Check out this view!" Klein told us as Kirito and I killed a monster.

"I didn't think the virtual world could have something this pretty." I said as we all look at the sunset over a cliff.

"Aincrad has a ton of these spots. It's weird. I feel more alive in the virtual world, than I do in the real one." Kirito said to us.

"I here ya." Klein agreed.

-END OF FLASHBACK-

That was the last moment of peace I had in this game. After that, Kayaba informed us of this being a death game. Being back here reminded me of my first hours in the game. Of Kirito teaching Klein and I about the game mechanics. Of my first monster kill. Of the moment I first fell in love with Kirito.

"Sinon? Hey!" Kirito said snapping his fingers in front of my face.

"What?" I asked confused.

"You zoned out." He told me.

"What were you thinking about?" Asuna asked.

"Ways to punish Kirito and Dillon for making us fight a mini-boss." I lied. Kirito and Dillon immediately got up and ran off. Asuna and I chuckled before running after them. "I wish everyday could be like this" I thought.

 **I had none of that planned. I didn't want this chapter to be the Yui chapter but I had no idea what it would be about. Now it's just a bunch of random scenes if the four having fun (sort of). I know it was shorter than my typical chapters but I think it was a good filler chapter. I want to have at least one more original chapter before the 75th floor boss fight but that is a topic for later. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Girl of the Morning Dew**


	16. Girl of the Morning Dew

**Kirito's POV**

"Kirito! Get up!" Sinon shouted. I (very reluctantly) got out of my bed wiping the sleep out of my eyes.

"What?" I asked yawning.

"It's almost 11 AM. I wanted to got do something other than wait for you to wake up." Sinon told me.

"Didn't we do something yesterday?" I said.

"You know what I meant." Sinon said angrily.

"Alright. I know this cool place we can go." I told her.

"Where?" Sinon questioned.

/

"Where are we going?" Sinon asked for the third time as we walked on a wooden path.

"It's a secret." I responded.

"That's the second time you've done that in three days!" Sinon complained.

"And doesn't it just drive you crazy?" I teased.

"Yes!" She yelled.

"That's why I do it." I joked.

"Kirito! Look! A Ragout Rabbit!" She shouted pointing toward the tiny ditch next to the path. I bent down and looked at the ditch for a few seconds before nearly being toppled over.

"SINON! What the hell are you doing?" I shouted angrily as she climbed on my shoulders.

"You're going to carry me to where we need to go." Sinon told me.

"Okay, but why?" I asked.

"Fun." She said.

"Fine." I sighed as I started to walk. I knew it was no use. Once Sinon had made up her mind, it was difficult to change it.

"Wow! We can see the lake from here!" Sinon said excitedly.

"No, YOU can see the lake." I corrected.

/

"Where are we going now?" Sinon asked as we entered a forest.

"Our destination." I said.

"Can you tell me what that is now?" Sinon questioned.

"I would but my shoulders are killing me because a certain blue-haired player is sitting on them." I explained not so subtly.

"Fine, I'll get down." She said getting off me. "Thank you very much, my noble steed." She joked giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"Next time, I'll charge you for a ride." I joked.

"Whatever. Now, you're going to tell me why we are here." Sinon repeated.

"I heard a rumor that in this forest there are ghosts." I began.

"You mean like the monsters from floor 64, right?" She said nervously.

"Nope. Real virtual ghosts." I said and she let out a tiny chuckle.

"Real virtual?" Sinon questioned.

"That's what I said. Anyway, there was this person who came into this forest to collect wood for a project. He stayed so late that it had turned night. As he was walking back, he noticed a white figure walking amongst the trees." I explained.

"K-Kirito?" Sinon said clinging to my arm.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Over there." Sinon pointed to a group of trees.

"There's nothing there, Sinon." I told her.

"But, there was!" She protested.

"You keep telling yourself that." I responded.

"There it is!" Sinon yelled pointing to an ACTUAL white figure walking in the woods. Sinon and I stared at it for a second before the figure collapsed.

"That's not a ghost!" I realized. It was a player. I ran up to the player, only to find she didn't have a cursor like players should.

"Is she a player?" Sinon asked.

"I think so, but she doesn't have a cursor." I explained.

"Maybe it's some kind of bug." She proposed.

"Maybe." I said deep in thought. She wasn't an NPC, since I could pick her up, and she wasn't a quest giver or our quest log would've been updated. A player seemed like the most likely option.

"What is a little girl like this doing in SAO?" Sinon wondered. The little girl had a white dress of sorts (I'm not good with clothes), dark blue hair like mine.

"We should bring her back to our house until she waked up." I said. Sinon nodded and picked up the girl as we began to head home.

/

The girl didn't wake up that night. Sinon stayed up almost all night watching over the girl before finally falling asleep next to her.

"Kirito! Wake up!" Sinon yelled at me like the previous morning. I awoke to see the girl from yesterday awake, staring at us.

"You're awake." I said happily.

"Can you tell us your name and what happened to you?" Sinon asked.

"My...My name...My name is...Yu...Yu...Yui." The little girl said stuttering in between words.

"That's a cute name. What happened to you?" Sinon repeated.

"I-I don't remember." Yui said.

"That's okay. My name is Sinon." Sinon introduced.

"I'm Kirito." I greeted.

"Sion, Kito." Yui said quietly.

"Sinon. Kirito." Sinon said gesturing to each of us.

"Sion, Kito." Yui repeated and Sinon just sighed.

"Okay, you just call us whatever is easiest." Sinon told her.

"Mommy." Yui told us. If I had a drink, I sure as hell would've done a spit take right there.

"Mommy?" Sinon questioned.

"Kito is daddy." Yui continued.

"D-Daddy?" I asked nervously.

"Okay. I guess I'm mommy. That works." Sinon said happily.

"Yay! Mommy!" Yui repeated in excitement.

"This is so weird." I said under my breath as I followed Yui and Sinon to our living room.

/

"Here you go, Yui." Sinon said handing Yui a sandwich that we had gotten from an NPC (like all our non-Asuna food). Yui looked at the sandwich weirdly before turning to me and looked at my food.

"Huh? I don't know, Yui. This is pretty spicy." I told her.

"I want whatever daddy has!" Yui told us happily.

"Alright then, I won't stop you." I said handing her some of my food. She hesitantly took a bite and swallowed before smiling happily.

"I like it." She said.

/

"Look at how peaceful she looks." Sinon told me as we watched Yui fast asleep on a chair.

"Sinon, I was thinking we would visit the Town of Beginnings to see if anyone knew Yui or her parents." I explained.

"Isn't that place crawling with the Aincrad Liberation Force soldiers?" She asked.

"Yeah, we should probably go in fully equipped." I told her.

"Sounds like a good idea." Sinon responded.

"We'll leave in a few hours once Yui has woken up." I said.

"Hey Kirito, what's going to happen if we can't find her parents?" Sinon asked.

"Huh? What do you mean?" I questioned.

"What if something happened to them? We're going to have to go back to the guild in a few weeks and we can't leave her alone or bring her to boss fights." Sinon explained. Her hands were fists now so i gently placed mine over hers.

"Don't worry, Sinon. We'll figure everything out." I assured her.

/

"It's been a while since I have been to the Town of Beginnings." I said as the three of us entered with Yui on my back.

"Does anything here look familiar Yui?" Sinon asked.

"No." Yui shook her head.

"Let's walk around town and see if it jogs your memory." I suggested.

/

"Kirito, how many players are living at the Town of Beginnings?" Sinon asked.

"Well, last I check 6,000 players are still alive in SAO. Since 30% of them are in this town, I would say around 2,000 players." I explained.

"Then doesn't it seem a bit empty." Sinon pointed out. She was right. I had yet to see a single person.

"Help!" A voice shouted from a nearby alleyway.

"Let's go!" Sinon said as we rushed toward the scream. As we approached, we saw around 5 members of the Aincrad Liberation Force, a women and three kids. From the yelling we heard, they were trying to forcefully take money from them because of "taxes" which was an incredibly stupid thing the ALF set in place for all residents of the Town of Beginnings. Sinon and I jumped clean over the ALF members and before I could even turn around, Sinon already had her dagger out.

"Who the hell are you guys?" One of the army guys asked. Sinon did not answer but instead clutched her dagger harder and glared at them.

"I guess you guys are new around here. We run this town and it is these people duty to either pay or leave!" The leader yelled.

"Think fast." Sinon said as she activated a sword skill and slammed the leader to the ground. Before he could get up, Sinon activated another and sent him flying once again. "Don't worry, this is a safe zone. I could attack you all I want but your HP won't lower. But I'll still scare the hell out of you." Sinon said sending him another glare. Immediately all five members ran off and Sinon sheathed her dagger.

"That was so cool!" One of the kids said.

"I've never seen anything like that!" Another said.

"Your mom is pretty cool, huh?" I asked Yui. Yui was looking up at the sky before extending her hand.

"Their hearts. I can see them. I was alone in the dark for so long." Yui said quietly.

"Yui, what's wrong?" I panicked.

"I don't belong here." Yui said.

"Yui!" Sinon yelled as Yui fell off my back with her eyes in a state of fear. Sinon quickly ran and caught Yui.

"Mommy! Help, I'm scared!" Yui said hugging Sinon tightly.

"Yui..." I whispered.

 **No matter what you think about the Yui episodes there is one thing we can agree on. Yui is adorable! Before I end this off, I want to talk about what will come next for this fic. Next chapter will obviously be the second Yui episode, then I plan to have an original chapter, followed by the fishing episode and then the boss fight. After that is completely original chapters. I'm not sure how many I will have. I won't have one for each floor but I do have a few ideas in mind. If you do have an idea, feel free to PM me or tell me in a review. If I like the idea, the I will use it in a chapter (along with credit to who submitted it, of course). I do have an ice and jungle floor planned as a little heads-up. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Girl of the Morning Dew Part 2**


	17. Girl of the Morning Dew Part 2

**School started today so I won't have as much time to write. That makes me sad. I also want to say I'm very grateful for all of the floor ideas that have been submitted so far. I will have to combine some ideas of they are similar but I hope to use as many ideas as I can. Here's something I haven't said in a while...**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"Has this ever happened to her before?" The women from yesterday, Sasha, asked.

"I don't know. We found her wandering the woods on floor 22." Sinon explained. "She couldn't remember anything so we took her to the Town of Beginnings to see if anyone knew her." Sinon continued.

"She has a basic set of gear, yet she was at the 22nd floor. So, she must have gone there with someone else. Have you seen her before?" I asked. Sasha took the kids trapped in SAO to the church at the Town of Beginnings as a shelter for them until we beat the game.

"No. I do a daily search of the town for children who need my help but I haven't ever seen Yui." Sash told us sadly.

"That would mean she would've had to leave the Town of Beginnings in the first few days of the game, buy no armor or weapons and still make it to floor 22nd presumably without running into any enemies." I rambled. Suddenly, there was a knock of the door. When we opened it, we were greeted by a female player dressed in an outfit some-what similar to the army guys from yesterday.

"Hello? I'm Yulier. I'm a member of the Aincrad Liberation Force." The player said.

"Are you mad at us for attacking the guild members yesterday because-" Sinon began.

"Not at all. I'd actually like to thank you for that. Those guys needed to be put in their place. I'm here because I have a favor I want you two to do for me." Yulier explained.

/

"You see, our guild's leader, Thinker never wanted the guild to force people to pay taxes and all that. His original intent was to just share information and resources with as many players as possible." Yulier explained.

"But then more players joined up, right?" I asked.

"Yes. One of the guild members, Kibaou, has risen in power within the guild." Yulier said.

"K-Kibaou?!" Sinon and I said in shock recalling the player we met over two years ago.

" _You're a god damn cheater, that's what you are!_ " I remembered. The last time I saw Kibaou, he was yelling at me for being a beta tester and clearly his attitude hadn't changed.

"After a few questionable decisions, the guild was considering kicking out Kibaou. However, when Kibaou learned this, he tricked Thinker into being trapped inside of a dungeon. I'm begging you, please help me rescue Thinker!" Yulier said bowing toward us. Sinon just looked at her skeptically.

"It's okay mommy. You can trust her, she is telling the truth." Yui assured her.

"Huh? How do you know that?" Sasha asked.

"I don't know. I just...do." Yui said smiling.

"Alright. We'll help out. Yui, stay here while we go find Thinker." I told her.

"NOOO! I want to go with you guys." Yui said clinging to Sinon's arm.

"Yui, wouldn't you rather stay with Sasha and play with the other kids?" Sinon asked.

"NO! I want to go with you and daddy." Yui retaliated clinging onto Sinon's arm tighter.

"...Fine." Sinon said sighing and picking up Yui.

"Yay!" She said happily.

"I can show you where the dungeon is." Yulier said walking off as Sinon, Yui and I followed.

/

"Why would Kibaou keep this place secret? The enemies here aren't that strong." I wondered.

"I'm guessing he was either hiding it for loot, or he intended to trick Thinker before he even knew about his potential removal." Yulier thought aloud.

"Even if Thinker dies, doesn't that just make you the new leader of the guild?" Sinon asked.

"In order to get full control of the guild, he would have to kill Thinker and Yulier, without attacking them so he wouldn't draw attention as a red player." I told her.

"I guess after Thinker died, he would try and kill me." Yulier said.

"If he wanted to control the guild, why doesn't he just make his own?" Yui asked.

"He probably didn't want to start one since most people are either in a guild or not fighting." I guessed.

/

"What's over there?" Sinon asked pointing to probably the only white area in the dark colored dungeon. A safe zone.

"It's Thinker!" Yulier said happily as she began to run toward him.

"No! Stop!" Thinker yelled. Before anyone could react, a large enemy jumped out of the wall and hit Yulier over to Thinker's side. The monster was called Fatal Scythe.

"Can you see its level?" Sinon asked nervously.

"Nope." I said just as frightened as she was.

"Yui, go to the safe zone." Sinon told her.

"But-" Yui began to protest.

"Hurry!" Sinon insisted. With that, Yui ran over to Thinker and Yulier.

"If we can't see its level, it could be a monster from floor 90." I told Sinon.

"I know." She said unsheathing her dagger. I followed her lead and pulled out my two swords. Fatal Scythe pulled back his weapon (naturally, it's a scythe) and swinged it at us with full force. Despite our best attempts to block it, the scythe stil sent us flying aginst the ceiling and back down.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Yui cried out. My health was already halfway down as well as Sinon's. One more hit and we are both done for. "Mommy! Daddy!" Yui yelled once again, but this time she ran out of the safe zone and in front of Fatal Scythe's attack.

"YUI!" Sinon shouted as the scythe almost made contact with Yui, however it never did. Fatal Scythe was sent flying back as his attack bounced off Yui.

"I-Immortal Object?" I questioned seeing the text above Yui's head.

"Yui?" Sinon asked.

"It's okay. I remember everything." Yui said as she summoned a flaming sword I can guarantee was not in her inventory earlier. Yui raised up the sword and sent it slamming down on Fatal Scythe, but instead of the normal exploding into polygons for when a monster dies, it instead slowly disintegrated until nothing remained.

/

"Yui. What's going on? You said you remembered everything." Sinon asked. The three of us were alone in the safe zone, so I assumed Yulier and Thinker teleported out while we were fighting.

"The mental health program. Prototype 1. Codename: Yui." Yui told us with tears in her eyes.

"Does...does that mean your just an AI?" I asked.

"Yes. Kirito. Sinon. I was made to help the players as they played through the game to prevent depression and eventually, suicide. However, when the game launched, I was unable to interact with anyone. All I was able to do was watch as hundreds of people were overcome by their sadness and died. But then, I saw two players who were unlike others. They were happy and enjoyed their lives while in Aincrad. I wanted nothing more than to meet you two, but that should be impossible." Yui explained.

"Yui..." Sinon said sadly.

"I tried to get as close as possible without being detected, but instead I passed out with amnesia." Yui continued.

"What will happen how?" Sinon asked half-heartedly.

"I used my admin privileges to delete the monster from the game. The bench here is one of the game master's emergency systems he can use to access the game from the inside. That no doubt alerted the game master of my presence. I should be removed from here in a matter of minutes." Yui told us.

"But...but I don't want you to leave Yui! I want us all to be together like a real family." Sinon said hugging Yui with tears in both their eyes.

"Mommy, daddy. Thank you." Yui said as she started disappearing.

"Yui, don't go!" I said trying to grab her hand.

"YUI!" Sinon shouted as Yui disappeared in her arms.

"KAYABA!" I shouted. I quickly went to work on the system Yui told us about.

"K-Kirito?" Sinon asked sadly.

"Some things won't always go the way you want, Kayaba." I murmured as I kept looking through the data on SAO. I was trying to bring back Yui, which I could only do if I worked fast enough. It was no good. Only half-way through, I was blasted back and the system shut down. Yui was gone.

"What happened?" Sinon asked. All I did was hold out my hand and gave Sinon what I had.

"It was all I could get back from Yui's data." I told her.

"What is it?" Sinon asked.

"You're holding Yui's heart." I said.

 **AWW! As much as I don't like the Yui episodes, that was sad. I rewatched the episode before I did this and know I feel like crying. Next chapter will be an original chapter. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Beach Quest: Kirito and Dillon**


	18. Beach Quest: Kirito and Dillon

**Kirito's POV**

"Why did we not think to do this sooner?" Asuna said rhetorically as the four of us walked out of town towards the beach. When Sinon and I got home after the Yui incident, Dillon messaged us asking if we wanted to go to the beach today. Naturally, we accepted and here we are.

"These two were busy yesterday so we couldn't when I had the idea." Dillon teased.

"Where were you guys anyway?" Asuna asked.

"Um...well..." I began.

"Just visiting the Town of Beginnings. You know, nostalgia and all that." Sinon half-lied.

"Didn't we go to the Town of Beginnings a week or so ago?" Dillon asked.

"Yeah, but this time it was different." Sinon retaliated.

"How?" Asuna asked.

"Was it because you got that necklace?" Dillon guessed. Sinon instantly stopped in her tracks when he said that. Sinon started wearing Yui's heart on a necklace since last night when I gave it to her.

"It's none of your business what we did so butt out!" Sinon yelled holding him my his shirt collar.

"Okay, got it. Can you let go now please?" Dillon asked nervously. Sinon simply dropped him to the ground and continued walking toward the beach. Needless to say, she was still a bit sensitive about Yui.

/

"This is exactly what we needed." Asuna said while Sinon and her were lying on the sand. Asuna was wearing a bikini while Sinon was wearing a one-piece swimsuit.

"Ditto." Sinon agreed.

"Are you two going to get in the water or am I going to be here all by myself for the rest of the day?" I asked them while standing in the water.

"Just give us like 5 minutes." Asuna said.

"You said that an hour ago." Dillon joked as he walked by them with a metal detector in his hand. He was dressed in a plain white shirt and shorts with some sunglasses on his head.

"What the hell is that?" Asuna asked.

"This is my metal detector." Dillon told her.

"Why do you have it?" Sinon questioned.

"In a big game like Sword Art Online, the developers are going to hide some loot on the beach. It's just common sense." Dillon explained.

"So, you are going to spend your day treasure hunting?" Asuna simplified.

"Yep. You coming Kirito?" He asked.

"Why not?" I shrugged as I got out of the water, dried off, put on a blue shirt and followed him as we walked around the beach.

/

"We've been looking for two hours. I don't think there is any treasure." I told him.

"We just have to keep looking." He said enthusiastically.

"You can keep looking. I'm going back to find Asuna and Sinon." I said.

"Suit your...self..." Dillon said pausing.

"Why the pause?" I asked.

"The metal detector! It's radar is going off! We found something." He said happily.

"What did we find?" I asked.

"Let's go find out!" Dillon said leading me where his metal detector took him.

/

"It should be around here." Dillon told me staring at his radar.

"Look in front of you dumbass!" I shouted. We were lead into a seaside cave and inside was a chest with tons of col inside.

"Yes! Teamwork!" He said as we high-fived.

"What do we do now? It's not like we can carry all the col back to my place." I pointed out.

"We could if the girls helped us out." Dillon suggested.

"What do ye scallywags think ye are doing with our treasure?" A voice behind us asked. We slowly turned around to find three pirates staring us down.

"Hi there. You know, we were just heading out so..." Dillon said attempting to leave.

"You two ain't goin' nowhere." Another pirate said grabbing Dillon and I by the arms.

"Lights out." The third one said hitting us in the head with the hilt of his sword.

/

I slowly opened my eyes to find Dillon and I tied to a post in a wooden room.

"Psst! Dillon." I whispered.

"You're awake. That's a relief." Dillon said happily.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"The pirate's ship. Apparently we are prisoners." He explained.

"What?" I asked in shock.

"I know right. It's so cool!" He said excitedly.

"That's not what I meant." I snapped. "We have to find a way out of here." I told him.

"They took my sword." He said.

"Damn they took mine too." I said in frustration.

"Wait. You have two, right?" Dillon asked. He was right. I always carried Elucidator and Dark Repulser with me. Luckily, I only had Elucidator equipped at the time.

"Let me try to get Dark Repulser out." I said. I scrolled through my inventory which was hard considering my hands were tied together. Eventually, I found it and managed to equip it. As soon as I did, it cut through the ropes (and a little part of my hand but I can always regen).

"Can you cut mine, without the cutting of the hand part?" He joked. I did as he asked and cut him free as well. After a minute, we were completely free.

"We have to get our swords back and get out of here fast." I explained.

"I know." Dillon said.

"Let's go." I said very carefully opening the door and the two of us silently began walking through the ship.

/

"What are ye two doing out?" One of the pirates asked. He drew his sword and charged at us. I intercepted his attack with Dark Repulser and slashed at him. I just noticed that he had a health bar and name above that. 'Deckhand' it read.

"What the hell is a deckhand?" I asked.

"Deckhands are one of the lowest ranks aboard a pirates ship. They typically only get small jobs like cleaning up and making sure no prisoners escape." Dillon explained.

"How do you know that?" I questioned.

"I like pirates. So what?" He retaliated.

"Well, this deckhand is really bad at his job." I joked before activating my 'Vertical Slash' skill and killing the enemy.

"That takes care of that." Dillon said. As we started to walk off, we heard pounding come from one of the rooms. I raised my sword as Dillon carefully opened the door. On the other side, was a female tied to a post like we were.

"Help me!" She cried out. A message popped up in front of us for the 'Pirate Treasure' quest. "Escort the NPC to the top of the ship to regain any stolen items and pirate's treasure".

"Cool! A pirate quest!" Dillon said in awe.

"It says we can regain stolen items by doing this quest." I told him.

"That must be our swords. I see no reason not to accept." Dillon said hitting the accept button and I followed his lead. I swung my sword down to cut the ropes of the NPC.

"Thanks you. Can you show me how to get out of here?" The NPC asked.

"Follow us." Dillon told her.

"We have no idea where we are going." I pointed out.

"Shhh.." He said.

/

We walked for what seemed like hours, however the in game clock said 20 minutes. After encountering a few more low-level pirates, we reached the deck where the pirate captain was waiting for us. He had all the traditional pirate things. Eye patch, bandana, peg leg, curved sword, parrot. However, he wasn't alone.

"Who's the other guy?" I asked my pirate-expert friend.

"I think that is the first-mate. He is basically the captain's right hand man." Dillon explained.

"What do ye think ye are doing?" The captain asked drawing his sword. No, wait. MY SWORD! The pirate captain was wielding Elucidator!

"I'm going to let you take this one." Dillon said beginning to back up. I quickly pulled a dagger out of my inventory and threw it at Dillon.

"I don't think so." I said charging up an attack.

"I don't use daggers, though." Dillon protested.

"Shut the hell up and fight!" I yelled as I ran toward the pirate captain. Our swords clashed as we began slicing at each other and dodging the other's attacks. I had not even a second to look over and find Dillon running circles around the first-mate and the NPC hiding to avoid the chaos. Every sword skill I tried was easily deflected by Elucidator. "Why did I have to get such a great sword?" I mentally complained as he blocked another attack. As we continued to fight, I heard a shuttering sound in the background and had just enough time to see Dillon run in and stab the captain in the back.

"Arrrgh!" The captain yelled as he dropped Elucidator.

"Vertical Slash!" I yelled finishing off the captain and picked up Elucidator.

"How the hell did you beat the first-mate so fast?" I asked panting.

"He didn't even hit me. I'm actually quite fast without my armor." He said smirking.

"Thank you." The NPC said as a 'Quest Complete' icon appeared in front of us.

"Damn! 100,000 col!" Dillon said happily.

"All I got was a ton of col and my sword back." I complained.

"Check this out!" Dillon said equipping a sword I didn't recognize. It was golden with a black hilt and a skull engraved at the tip of the blade.

"What is that!?" I asked in shock.

"I got it from the quest!" Dillon explained.

"But I beat the captain." I questioned.

"Yeah, but I'm better." He joked. "How did you get a dagger anyway?" Dillon asked.

"It was from Sinon and I's shared inventory." I explained.

"Don't you only get those if you are married in-game?" Dillon asked devilishly.

"Shut up!" I said angrily as we began to head back to Sinon and Asuna.

 **I think we can all agree that pirates are amazing. Next chapter will be what Sinon and Asuna did while Kirito and Dillon were off treasure hunting. I only did this one first because pirates are awesome. Also, I want to thank everyone so much because we have just hit 50 favorites and over 10,000 views on this story! That is incredible! Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Beach Quest: Sinon and Asuna**


	19. Beach Quest: Sinon and Asuna

**I spent like half an hour trying to come up with an idea for this chapter. I mean, how was I supposed to top pirates? Is that even possible? Probably not. Here's a new chapter anyway.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Sinon's POV**

"What do we do now?" I asked Asuna as soon as Kirito and Dillon left to go treasure hunting.

"We need to find a way to top whatever treasure the guys can find." Asuna said devilishly.

"Why? Do you and Dillon have some sort of bet going or something?" I wondered.

"No, it would just be funny." Asuna told me as she got up and started stretching.

"I'm assuming you have a plan to do this." I said.

"Of course I do." Asuna responded.

/

"A monster quest?" I questioned as a quest icon appeared in front of me.

"Check the reward." Asuna told me.

"100,000 col!" I yelled in surprise.

"Yeah. I doubt the guy can get that much." Asuna said.

"Well, what do we have to do?" I asked.

"There is apparently this lake monster and we have to kill it." Asuna explained.

"If it is a lake monster then how do we fight it underwater?" I wondered.

"I...hadn't thought about that." Asuna admitted.

"God dammit." I cursed.

"How about we lure it out of the water so we can kill it?" Asuna suggested.

"At least it's better than Kirito's plans." I joked.

/

"This is the most boring thing I have ever done in my life." I said. Asuna and I bought a motorboat so we could lure out the monster then have it chase us to the shore but it has been two hours and there is zero sign of any monster. "Are you sure there even is a monster?" I asked.

"Why would they make a quest that is impossible?" Asuna asked rhetorically.

"To have players spend two hours sitting on a boat for no reason." I answered anyway.

"We just have to keep looking." Asuna told me.

"Don't you think we should go find the guys?" I questioned.

"No, they're fine." Asuna said not paying much attention to my question.

"How are you and Dillon?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Asuna questioned.

"Well, you said you two hung out yesterday. I think if it weren't for Kirito and I you two wouldn't know each other." I joked.

"I mean, the two of us went on the dungeon raid when he first joined up." Asuna said refusing to look directly at me.

"So, are you two friends or more?" I teased.

"Hey! I think I see the monster!" Asuna said trying to avoid the question.

"That's not what I asked." I retaliated.

"No, it's really there!" Asuna yelled.

"Huh?" I said turning around. Sure enough, there was a 30 foot high sea creature with glowing yellow eyes.

"Drive to shore?" Asuna asked.

"Drive to shore." I confirmed. Just like that, Asuna and I sped across the water with the monster hot on our tail, swinging at us with its head. I tossed a few knives at it as we drove away but it hardly did any damage. As we approached the shore, the monster swung its tail sending us flying of our boat and into the sand.

"Now we attack it." Asuna told me as she used her 'Linear' sword skill against the monster. I searched through my inventory for my dagger, but it wasn't there. I know I have it in there so the only way I could of lost it is...Kirito! Why did he need my dagger? I stopped thinking about it and just threw my knives at the monster who was named 'The Lake Bess Sea Monster'.

"Original." I said to myself as I dodged its acid spit that it had for some reason. Luckily, my dagger reappeared in my inventory as I was running low on knives. I quickly pulled it out and cut at the monster's neck and body.

"Look out!" Asuna yelled to me. With a fraction of a second to spare, I managed to dodge the monster's lasers. Why does he have lasers? This is a weird monster. He fired the lasers once again and this time I tried to block with my dagger which actually reflected it back at the monster, instantly killing it.

"Well that was convenient." I said as the 'Quest Complete' icon appeared in front of me.

"Why did it have lasers?" Asuna asked rhetorically.

"That's what I'm saying!" I yelled in agreement.

/

"I don't believe we ever got to finish our conversation from the boat." I said to Asuna as we packed up all of the stuff we brought that day.

"What conversation?" Asuna asked innocently.

"About Dillon." I said. "And you.." I continued. Asuna turned away from me but failed at trying to hide her blushing.

"Yeah, they should be back now." Asuna said changing the subject.

"Where are they?" A familiar voice said behind us jokingly. Kirito.

"They shouldn't be keeping you ladies waiting like this." Dillon said joining Kirito in the joke.

"Perhaps we should stay here and keep these girls company while they wait for there friends to come back." Kirito continued.

"You two can drop the act now." I said chuckling.

"What happened to you two?" Asuna asked gesturing to the multiple injuries on their hands and faces.

"Pirates." They answered at the same time.

"How come my dagger wasn't in my inventory an hour ago?" I asked them.

"Pirates." They responded again.

"Alright then." Asuna said shrugging.

"How much treasure did you find?" I questioned.

"Together, 200,000 col and an awesome sword." Dillon bragged equipping a golden sword with a skull engraved on the tip of the blade.

"You beat us by one awesome sword!" Asuna said semi-angrily.

"We should get home. I beat." Kirito said yawning.

"Ditto." Asuna, Dillon and I agreed as the four of us headed home telling each other how we each spent our day.

 **It's a bit on the short side. I know that. I had an idea for this chapter, but then I stopped halfway through because it was extremely boring. So, you got monster hunting instead. Which is probably just as bad. The whole missing dagger thing was a reference to how Dillon had to use it last chapter to fight the First-Mate for anyone who was curious. I will also be skipping the fishing episode of the anime since it was just kind of dumb and unnecessary. I do have another original chapter planned to happen before the 75th floor boss fight. I think that will be the last original chapter until we finish off the SAO arc of the anime. As I have stated before, this fic will go to floor 100 because that is what the anime should have done instead of stopping 3/4 of the way through. I think you guys have had enough of my rambling so I will stop here. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Matchmaker**


	20. Matchmaker

**Kirito's POV**

Only 3 more days until our vacation is over. It was hard to believe that it had already been nearly 3 weeks.

"Dammit!" Dillon shouted in frustration as he looked at the drops he got from the monster.

"If you are just going to kill the monsters by yourself, why am I here?" I asked. Dillon had dragged me to the 32nd floor to find some material he needed for a quest. Needless to say, he has been having some, minor trouble finding it. In other words, we have been here for 2 hours fighting the same monster.

"Moral support?" Dillon suggested as he went off to find another monster.

"With only 3 days left, I kind of wanted to have fun, or you know, anything but just standing here?" I joked.

"We can leave as soon as I get the materials." Dillon responded.

"You need 8 of them and we only have 3." I said.

"So?" Dillon questioned.

"WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOR 2 HOURS!" I yelled angrily.

/

Eventually, we got them all. Only after I went to town and saw a trade for the material Dillon needed. All he needed to give up was the same drop he was getting from the monsters for 2 hours. He only has like, 200 of them by now. We got the material, finished the quest, then headed to Lisbeth's blacksmith shop for the upgrade he failed to tell me about.

"Thank you, I will get to work immediately." Lisbeth said as she took his sword into the backroom to begin the upgrade.

"Thanks for telling me that we would spend an additional hour waiting in a blacksmith shop." I said sarcastically to Dillon.

"Your welcome." Dillon joked.

"You know, I could have been spending the day with my girlfriend, but nope. Spending my day waiting was so much better!" I complained again.

"Quit complaining." Dillon told me. "We spent three weeks with the girls, I think one day away from them won't kill anyone."

"Speaking of which, what do you and Asuna do when Sinon and I aren't around?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" He questioned.

"Like when Sinon and I spent those few days at the Town of Beginnings. What do you two do then?" I said.

"Nothing much. She dragged me shopping again that day." Dillon said sadly.

"HAH!" I laughed.

"Oh haha. I had to go shopping and you didn't so now it's a joke." He continued.

/

 **Sinon's POV**

I yawned as I entered Kirito and I's shared cottage. He was already on the couch taking a nap so I tried to sneak past without waking him up. As I walked past him, his arm suddenly jerked out grabbing mine, scaring the crap out of me.

"Kirito! Dammit!" I yelled as I hit him on the head.

"If you were in my place you would do the same." Kirito joked as he sat up.

"True. What did you do today?" I asked.

"Dillon dragged me to fun and exciting world of sitting and waiting." Kirito told me half-heartedly.

"Asuna and I spent the whole day sorting through our equipment." I complained.

"How did you manage to waste an entire day doing that?" Kirito questioned.

"Don't ask." I told him.

"Okay, I won't." Kirito said.

"Hey, random question." I began.

"Oh no, not the random question!" Kirito said pretending to be afraid. I chuckled before continuing.

"What would you say if I told you that Asuna had a crush on Dillon?" I asked.

"I would say you're crazy. The two are polar opposites." Kirito told me.

"Opposites attract. It's science." I pointed out.

"And like forces repel. That's also science and we are together." Kirito responded.

"I break the laws of physics." I joked.

"Sure you do." Kirito said sarcastically.

"Anyway, I'm being serious about this." I told him.

"I'm not. Asuna and Dillon are nothing alike. Why would she have a crush on him?" Kirito asked.

"Because opposites attract! Have you never heard that saying?" I questioned.

"Never." He told me.

"Just help me with this." I pleaded.

"Sinon, it's not going to work. Dillon and Asuna are just friends." Kirito insisted.

"It'll work, you just have to get them where I need them, and leave the rest to me." I explained.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Kirito asked.

"Nope." I said.

"Fine." Kirito said giving up.

/

It was perfect. I had found this dungeon where there was split path, both leading to entirely different areas. It would seem like a simple dungeon raid, but it was all apart of my plan. Kirito and I would go down one path while Dillon and Asuna would go down the other.

"Here it is." Kirito said as he lead Dillon and Asuna to the dungeon.

"I thought you were the one who said we should have fun on our last few days." Dillon questioned.

"Changed my mind. Now, there are split pathways so Sinon and I will take this one and you two take the other, okay bye." Kirito said quickly before the two of us rushed away down one of the paths.

/

 **Asuna's POV**

God dammit, Sinon! This is what I get for telling her a secret while we are sorting through our inventories.

"That was weird." Dillon said as he began to walk down the other path and I quickly followed. Immediately, Dillon and I found a low-leveled enemy and swiftly defeated it without a problem.

"This reminds me of when you first joined the guild." I told him.

"Huh?" Dillon questioned as he wasn't paying attention.

"We were doing all the fighting while Crane stood there and watched." I joked.

-FLASHBACK-

"Alright newbie, let's see what you got!" I said as we approached the enemy.

"I have a name!" Dillon said angrily as he drew his sword and started running around the enemy.

"Just attack it already!" I yelled getting impatient at Dillon's antics.

"All apart of the plan." Dillon assured me as he continued to run around the enemy. Eventually, the enemy stopped looking at him and I saw an icon next to his health bar I hadn't seen before. 'Dizziness'. Dillon then activated a sword skill and easily beat the enemy.

"What status effect was that?" Crane asked Dillon as he sheathed his sword.

"Dizziness. If the enemy circles around long enough, it will get this effect and prevent it from attacking correctly. In a large hoard of enemies, you can get them to kill themselves." Dillon explained.

"But that takes way too long. You could have easily taken it out if you just used a sword skill from the beginning." I told him.

"You do things your way, and I'll do things mine." Dillon said.

-END OF FLASHBACK-

"Yeah, after that Heathcliff made me a tank, for some reason." Dillon recalled. Dillon originally used a one-handed sword until we were running low on shield-users so he became a tank.

"You were always really reckless. A lot of health would help with that." I told him.

"Whatever." He joked as we continued walking along. I decided that I wouldn't tell him how I really feel until later. Maybe not until we leave this game. Now, just didn't seem like the right moment. I would have to wait for the moment. My moment.

 **Sinon's matchmaking failed! NO! Well, sort of. I mean, Asuna likes Dillon. But does Dillon like Asuna?! That's the big question that an answer won't be given to. At least, for now. However, all good things must come to an end. This was the last chapter in the vacation part of this story. Next is the boss fight! Yeah! Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **The 75th Boss**


	21. The 75th Boss

**Kirito's POV**

I breathed a heavy sigh as Sinon and I teleported to the plaza of the 75th floor. Today was the day we had to go back to the front lines, and fight the 75th floor boss fight.

"Shouldn't Asuna and Dillon be here by now?" Sinon asked as we sat down on a nearby bench to wait for our friends.

"Kirito! Sinon!" A familiar voice called out. That voice was none other than Klein.

"Klein? I haven't seen you since the Gleam Eyes fight." I said.

"That's because you joined a guild, then got three weeks off without inviting me." Klein complained.

"Aren't you a guild leader? I don't think you qualify for a vacation." Sinon joked.

"If it isn't Kirito?" Another voice said. This time it was Agil.

"What are you doing here?" I asked since Agil didn't participate in boss fights very often.

"Like hell I'm gonna miss the loot from the boss." Agil told us.

"Don't you have enough money?" I asked sarcastically.

"Never enough." Agil joked.

"So, where is the rest of your guild?" Klein asked.

"No clue. Heathcliff just said to meet here." Sinon explained.

"Maybe Asuna is with Heathcliff, since you know, she IS second in command." Agil suggested.

"That's probably it." I guessed. As if on cue, members of the Knights of the Blood Oath began teleporting into the square, Heathcliff leading. Among them, was Asuna and Dillon.

"Finally, you guys are here." Sinon said in relief.

"Sorry about that, Heathcliff messaged me wanting to go over the plan one more time." Asuna admitted. Sinon and Asuna began chatting about the plan, however I was pulled away mid-way through the plan into an alley.

"What the hell? Dillon?" I said loudly.

"Shhh!" Dillon demanded covering my mouth. "I need to tell you something." Dillon said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Last week, 20 people were sent to scout out the boss room. When they entered, the room, half of them were trapped in by the gates. When they finally opened, there were no remains of any bodies or the boss." Dillon explained.

"So? It's not uncommon for a raid group of twenty to lose a boss fight." I pointed out.

"That's not the point. They couldn't warp out with crystals." Dillon told me. As soon as he said that, I started having flashbacks of the Moonlit Black Cats, but Dillon snapped me out of it quickly. "If anything starts going bad, or something happens to me, I want you to get Asuna and Sinon out of there as fast as you can." Dillon told me.

"Isn't that always the plan?" I joked. Dillon didn't even smile, he just stared at me, deadly serious.

"Promise me that." Dillon said.

"Okay." I said trying to walk away. Dillon grabbed my wrist then looked me straight in the eye.

"Promise me you will protect them." Dillon repeated.

"Okay." I said again going to rejoin the girls.

/

"Here we are." Heathcliff said as we arrived at the boss gate. "I'm not going to lie, there is a chance some of you will not live to see the end of this battle. Even so, let's all try our best to get one step closer to escaping!" Heathcliff announced. Everyone began cheering as we ran into the boss room. After we reached the center, everything was quiet for a few seconds as we waited for the boss to appear.

"Up there!" Sinon shouted. I looked up to see a centipede, skeleton thing climbing on the ceiling. It then jumped down from the ceiling, and used a shockwave attack, instantly killing two people.

"I-Insta-kill?!" Agil yelled in surprise.

"How are supposed to beat it with that kind of power?" I asked nobody.

"Tanks, set up the defenses!" Heathcliff shouted. Around 20 to 25 people stood in front of everyone and held out their shields. It was at that moment I realized why Dillon was so worried about the boss fight. He was a tank as well. The thought had completely slipped my mind earlier. The boss, which was named the 'Skull Reaper', slashed at the tanks, which put a huge dent in all of their shields, some of them even being knocked out of the player's hands. This, naturally, left them open to attacks, which the Skull Reaper took advantage of, killing three more players.

"Attack it from the sides!" Asuna shouted. Everyone began using sword skills against the boss, only knocking it down one of its FIVE health bars. As we tried to attack again, the boss began jumping around the arena, causing mini-shockwaves everywhere. The bosses strength and agility was a powerful combination that got me very worried. The quarter bosses were always much stronger than the other bosses but never were they this much more powerful!

"Defend!" Heathcliff ordered again. The tanks once again held out their shields as the boss attacked, but this time, almost every shield was either destroyed or knocked across the arena. The Skull Reaper began killing one player after another, until it came time to attack another tank without their shield, Dillon. I ran as fast as I possibly could, trying to reach him before the Skull Reaper could.

"DILLON!" I yelled activating my 'Starburst Stream' skill. Luckily, Asuna was able to reach Dillon fast enough, and with Heathcliff's help, block the attack. I quickly jumped in and unleased my 50-hit combo against the boss. Everyone took this as their cue to start attacking. I saw knives flying through the air (most thrown by Sinon), and bursts of different colors as they hit the boss over and over.

"Go in for the kill! Just a few more combos!" Heathcliff yelled. As we attacked and dodged it's onslaught of attacks, I noticed that the boss' name changed. Normally, it would do that when it uses a special skill. However, this one read 'Last Resort'. I recognized the attack from the 25th and 50th boss fights. When the boss was low, it would use this attack to kill itself and use an extremely dangerous attack that would kill most players.

"RUN!" I shouted dashing away. As the boss used the attack, tons of other players ran away in fear. There was a blinding light for a few seconds, then the dust cleared away revealing the 'Congratulations' message. We had beat the boss, barely. I looked around for my friends. Sinon was always far away from the boss, so she was fine. Asuna was in the low yellow as she sat next to Dillon, who had low to mid red health. I had noticed he wasn't wearing his usual armor, but instead a coat like mine. I assumed he switched mid fight to a more agile attacker since he lost his shield. Klein and Agil were back to back on the ground panting, both in the high yellow.

"Are you okay, Kirito?" Sinon asked walking up to me.

"I'm fine." I assured her.

"We lost fourteen people in that fight alone." Sinon told me.

"Dammit. That's the most we have lost since floor 39." I said angrily.

"At least we are okay." Sinon said trying to lighten the mood.

"I guess." I mumbled.

"Maybe we'll have better luck on the next floor." Sinon said quickly kissing my cheek then dragging me over to Asuna and Dillon. Next floor. We were only 3/4 through this game. How much longer can we last in this death game?

 **FREE AT LAST! It is finally time to abandon the anime because from now on it will be completely original chapters! If you can't tell I am excited about that. I'm not sure how many chapters there will be, but one can only wait and time will tell. Or some other poetic line like that. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Wasteland War**


	22. Wasteland War

**This chapter is an idea I thought of, and the viewer suggested floors will begin starting next chapter. Just wanted to get that out of the way. LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

As the raid group left the 75th floor boss room, I began thinking about what the next floor would be. I expected to be greeted with a blinding light when entering the floor, since that was what typically happened, but instead I heard shouts coming from NPCs. I looked around at the desolate wasteland that we had arrived in. There was nothing but mud and dirt on the ground for miles on end without a single tree in sight. The sky was filled with smoke and the entire area looked like a battleground. The raid group moved to what we assumed to be the safe zone, and saw lots of tiny huts with NPCs in them. The NPCs looked awful, with dirt covering their clothes and face, as well as just looking generally unhealthy.

"What the hell is this place?" Klein muttered as we walked through the town. Eventually, everyone in the raid group split up to begin searching for any clues as to where the boss room was located. Naturally, Sinon, Dillon, Asuna and I looked together.

"Guys, come check this out." Asuna told us pointing to a pop-up message that appeared in front of here. It was the description of the floor that every player got once they went to a floor for the first time.

"Humanity close to extinction and society collapsed. The world has become polluted and only the strongest, fastest and smartest humans will survive in this post-apocalyptic world." The message read.

"That is very cliché." Dillon joked as the same message appeared in front of him, and the same happened to Sinon and I a few seconds later.

"Who cares? Let's just find the boss and kill it so we can leave this terrible floor for good." Asuna said coughing.

"Let's go ask some NPCs if they have seen anything." Sinon suggested.

"Or we could go explore for it." Dillon proposed. He didn't wait for an answer before he drew his sword and headed out of the safe zone.

"You guys check the NPCs, I'll make sure he doesn't die." I told the girls before rushing after Dillon.

/

By the time I caught up with Dillon, he already had his sword drawn and was charging at an enemy. "Nuclear Boar" was the name of the enemy. It looked just like a regular boar from floor 1, but when Dillon attacked it, the boar didn't even flinch.

"Um, what?" Dillon questioned. The boar's HP hadn't dropped no matter how many times Dillon sliced at it. Suddenly, its tusks extended, somehow, and knocked the sword right out of Dillon's hands.

"What the hell?" I asked to nobody. By the time Dillon retrieved his weapon, the boar had already run away at incredible speeds.

"What just happened?" Dillon said.

"Well, it is a nuclear boar. Must be some excuse to give really weird abilities to the monsters." I guessed.

"But why wouldn't my sword work? This game's primary weapon is swords!" Dillon said angrily before we began walking back to town to tell the girls what happened.

/

Before we even entered the safe zone, Sinon and Asuna came running up to us and then dragging us toward an NPC.

"What did you guys figure out?" I asked.

"On this floor, you can't harm enemies with swords." Sinon told us.

"We kind of figured that out." Dillon said.

"So, how do we harm them?" I questioned.

"With these." Asuna said pulling up an NPC's purchasable items list. Normally, there would be different materials, some armor pieces and a half-way decent sword, but this time, it had guns. Lots and lots of guns.

"Why are there guns in a game called Sword Art Online?" I asked emphasizing the 'sword' part.

"Beats me, but according to the NPCs, it's the only way we can harm enemies on this floor. However, we can only use them on this floor." Asuna explained.

"Cool!" Dillon said as he begun to look over the different guns.

"I guess that means we're going shopping." I joked.

"Guys, check this out. A type 54 'Black Star'" Dillon said showing us the item image of the small handgun.

"I have to go." Sinon said quickly as she rushed out of the tent.

"Sinon?" I said before chasing after my girlfriend.

"What's her problem?" Dillon asked.

"No idea." Asuna answered.

/

"Hey! Sinon!" I called out running after her. "What's wrong?" I asked grabbing her shoulder.

"It's nothing. I just want to be alone." Sinon said quietly pushing my hand away from her.

"Why?" I asked.

"I said it's nothing." Sinon repeated before running off.

"Sinon!" I yelled before chasing after her once again. I continued to chase after her for a few minutes until I lost her in the crowd of other players. More specifically, the Knights of the Blood Oath, which helped me not at all to find Sinon since she was wearing the same clothes as everyone else. "Sinon!" I yelled again as I got away from the large mass of players. I used my tracking skill to locate her, sitting by herself in one of the player tents the guilds had made, crying into her arm.

"Go away, Kirito!" She told me sniffling.

"Sinon. Tell me what's wrong. Please." I said to her wiping the tears out of her eyes.

"I-I can't." She said quietly, as tears continued to flow out of her eyes.

"Sinon..." I said to myself. I haven't seen her like this since the Gleam Eyes boss fight, which meant that something really bad had happened to her.

"I don't want to talk about it." Sinon told me.

"It's okay." I said trying to calm her down. She pressed her head against my chest as she continued to cry.

/

Hours passed and I didn't once let go of Sinon as she kept weeping into my shirt. Dillon and Asuna had messaged me asking where we were, which I quickly replied with 'Dealing with something, see you later'.

"K-Kirito." Sinon said after hours of silence.

"Yeah?" I asked her.

"I killed someone. Even before this death game." Sinon admitted. I stayed silent, unsure of what to say. "It was years ago, during a robbery. The burglar had dropped his gun, so I picked it up and pointed it towards him, just trying to get him to leave. He didn't, and instead started yelling at me, so out of fear...I pulled the trigger."

"Sinon..." I said.

"I can barely look at a gun without having a panic attack. The one Dillon had, was the same type that the burglar had that day." Sinon explained. "I understand if you don't want to-" Sinon began but I cut her off by kissing her. She was in shock for a few seconds before kissing back. We eventually stopped and I looked her straight in the eye.

"I murdered two people on the day of the Laughing Coffin assault, and then there was Kuradeel. I don't care that you killed someone. We both acted out of fear." I told her. "You're not alone, Sinon."

"I'm just not sure if I can get through this floor." Sinon told me.

"If you ever feel scared, you can come to me. We're in this together, Sinon." I said. Sinon smiled faintly and the two of us stayed in each other's arms all that night.

 **Poor Sinon. Obviously, this floor was heavily based on GGO, but that doesn't mean that I won't cover that arc. To be honest, I don't know what I'm going to do for ALO, or if I'm even going to do GGO. I most likely will, but that is a discussion for after I finish SAO. As I said, the viewer submitted floors will begin next chapter, so prepare for that! Thanks for reading!**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Attack from Above**


	23. Attack from Above

**First off, I said in a previous chapter that I would have a jungle floor, and this is that one. However, a guest (which means I unfortunately can't name them) submitted an idea for an enemy, rather than a floor, so I decided to have the main focus of this chapter be that enemy. Also, I want to say that all the enemies names I use in the chapter are names I came up with on the spot.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

After Sinon and I rejoined Dillon and Asuna to get the weapons we needed for the floor, we realized that there was a certain material that was necessary to get the guns we wanted. We decided that Sinon would get a sniper rifle, so she could maintain her role, attacking the enemy from behind everyone else. Also, her accuracy levels were crazy high due to her being a long ranged character most of the time. Since I had the dual-wielding skill, I would get two pistols so I could still move fast, even with two guns. Dillon chose a minigun due to his very high defenses and Asuna just went with a simple handgun. Now, we had to go back to the 65th floor to get the materials we needed.

"I don't even remember this place." I said as we entered the floor. We had beat this floor in just two days so I didn't recall the area too well.

"Oh yeah, this is that jungle floor." Dillon said as the four of us left the safety of town. Immediately, I noticed the countless trees everywhere, with vines that connected each tree together. I couldn't even tell where the vines started! Sinon lead the way, using her dagger to cut away any plants that were in the way.

"So, what materials are we looking for?" Asuna asked.

"We need a 'Crescent Feather' for Sinon, two 'Razor Horns' for Asuna and I, and a ton of 'Barbaradactyl Eggs' for Dillon." I said reading off the list Sinon and I made yesterday.

"What the hell is Barbaradactyl?" Sinon asked.

"No idea." I admitted.

"Well, the 'Razor Horns' are dropped from the 'Striped Antolos', and they are pretty common so we should get those first." Asuna explained. As if on cue, the enemy appeared. 'Striped Antolos' looked like a tiger, standing on two legs but with two bull horns attached to its head. Oh yeah, and it carries a battle-axe. I used my 'Vertical Slash' skill to parry the monster's attack.

"SWITCH!" I yelled. In a second, Asuna ran in front of me, and used a 'Linear' skill to decrease most of the enemies HP. Together, Asuna and I used our 'Quadruple Strike' attacks and finished off the enemy.

"We didn't even have to do anything." Dillon joked as Asuna and I got the message of what items we received. None.

"Damn." I said under my breath.

* * *

Only a half-hour later, we collected the horns. Now, for Dillon and Sinon's items.

"It says here that the 'Crescent Feather' drops from Barbaradactyl and their eggs can be gotten from their nest." Asuna said reading the manual of the floor the NPCs had given her.

"But how do we get to the nest?" Dillon asked. His question was quickly answered by a loud squawking noise coming from above the trees. I couldn't see the source through the leaves, though. Then, a gigantic bird swooped down and grabbed Dillon by the shoulders, lifting him far off the ground.

"Dillon!" Asuna cried out. Sinon tried to throw a knife at the bird, but she couldn't get a clear shot at it. Eventually, the bird let go of Dillon, sending him plummeting down, hitting multiple trees on the way down. If it weren't for his armor, he probably would've died. Dillon got a health potion out of his inventory, so he was fine in after a few minutes, but his armor still had tons of scratches in it.

"Those talons are sharp." Dillon said inspecting the large dents in his shoulder plates.

"Did you see where their nest is?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's at the top of a huge mountain. It's only about a mile north of here." Dillon explained.

"Then, that's where we are going!" Sinon said confidently, until her stomach growled. "After lunch!" Sinon continued as if she planned that, causing the four of us to laugh together as Asuna got out the food.

* * *

"You didn't tell us it was this steep!" I complained as the four of us climbed the mountain where the gigantic birds, which I assumed were the Barbaradactyl, lived.

"It's a mountain!" Dillon told me. We had been climbing for nearly an hour, and were only just now seeing the top of it. "It's either this, or the Barbaradactyl can carry you up."

"Will they kill me on the way up?" I joked.

"No, they will injure you to the point of near-death, then drop you." Dillon explained sarcastically.

"Can you guys just stop talking? It's hard to focus on not falling when you're arguing." Asuna told us.

"You don't need to do that." Dillon said as the four of us lifted ourselves onto the top of the mountain. "When you're on top." Dillon finished as we surveyed the top. The only noteworthy thing was a nest made out of sticks, with roughly a dozen eggs in there. We went to grab them, but the Barbaradactyl swooped in and tried to grab us. It turns out, the bird was actually pretty easy when you could see where it was. When it swooped in to grab us, I used my dual-swords to trap its feet and prevent it from flying away. Asuna used a 'Linear' skill and Dillon used 'Megaton Smash' to knock out most of the bird's HP, and cutting of its feet in the process. As the bird attempted to fly away, Sinon through a knife, landing it straight in the bird's neck, killing it.

"Got it!" Sinon said triumphantly as the screen appeared, informing her she got the 'Crescent Feather' she needed.

"So, how do we get down?" Dillon asked, his arms full of the Barbaradactyl eggs.

* * *

 **Lisbeth's POV**

"Hey Lis!" Dillon said entering the blacksmith's shop.

"Dillon! Where's everybody else?" I asked.

"Kirito and Sinon are off doing who knows what and Asuna is getting us the weapons we need for the next boss fight." Dillon explained.

"What's wrong with the weapons you have?" I questioned.

"They can't damage the enemies on floor 76. You need to buy all new weapons specific to that floor in order to beat the boss." Dillon told her.

"Wow, that must have really drained your bank account." I joked.

"That's why Kirito paid for all of it. So, the reason I'm here is because my armor got scratched a ton while we were off collecting materials and as blacksmith, it falls upon you to do that." I said to me handing the me his armor.

"What caused this?" I asked.

"Gigantic birds on floor 65." He answered.

"The Barbaradactyl?" I guessed.

"How did you know?" Dillon asked.

"I know stuff." I told him as I headed into the back to repair his armor, which only took a few minutes with my high blacksmith skill. "There you go, good as new." I said handing him his armor.

"Thank you." He said handing her the 2000 col he owed.

"So, you and Asuna?" I asked casually.

"What about Asuna and I?" Dillon questioned.

"Just wondering how you guys are doing..." I lied. Sinon had told me all about Asuna's crush on Dillon, so we have been trying to get Dillon to admit it as well.

"We're fine. The boss fights have been getting crazy lately." Dillon told her.

"You weren't even at the floor 74 boss fight." I pointed out.

"That doesn't count." Dillon joked. "Well, I got to run. See ya!" Dillon said exiting her shop. Another failure, maybe Dillon didn't like Asuna. He didn't show any signs of it after I asked him. We'll just have to keep trying, because I know Asuna will never admit it herself.

 **Dillon, you oblivious idiot. For reference, the enemies are pronounced Barbaradactyl (Bar-bare-i-dac-till) and Antolos is exactly how it's spelled. However, I am going to ask you guys a very important question. Dillon and Lisbeth, or Dillon and Asuna? I do plan to have Lisbeth (And possibly Klein) appear more often in these new chapters, so who should be Dillon's virtual girlfriend? It obviously won't happen instantly, but this will give me an idea of what to do with Dillon, Lisbeth and Asuna's characters later in this story. Next chapter will be the boss of the 76th floor. Thanks for reading!  
**

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Giant Gyanak: Origin**


	24. Giant Gyanak: Origin

**Sinon's POV**

Today was the day of the boss fight. As much as I wanted to stay behind, hide at one of the lower floors just so I didn't have to fight with a gun, I knew I had to. My gun wasn't even in my inventory, it was in Kirito's. He promised to keep it until the boss fight so I didn't freak out when he wasn't there. Even though we had a shared inventory so helped very little, it was really sweet of him. The only downside was that Kirito refused to let me have it when he wasn't present, so when Asuna would ask to practice, I would decline.

"Are you going to be alright?" Kirito asked me for about the eighth time as we arrived at the boss gate.

"I'm fine, Kirito." I assured him.

"I'm just making sure." Kirito said.

"For the eighth time?" I joked.

"You freaked out just by looking at a gun. Now you are actually firing one. Can you blame me?" Kirito joked.

"Attention, players! Is everyone prepared for the boss fight?" Heathcliff shouted earning a 'yes' from every player. "Then, onwards!" Heathcliff said as the boss gate opened. Slowly, the torches surrounding the boss arena lit up like they usually do. The boss opened his glowing, red eyes as it stood up. The boss was named the 'Giant Gyanak' and had four legs with two large pincers. It was dark blue with it's pincers being the only exception, being yellow. Lots of tanks moved forward with their mini guns and started shooting at the boss. The boss' health went down slightly as it sprouted wings from its back and flew above all the players.

"Snipers, move to the left side. Tanks, keep that boss away from us!" Heathcliff shouted. I followed his instructions and set up my sniper rifle next to around 10 other players on the far left side of the arena. After I got it loaded, I looked through the scope to get a clear shot at the boss. I could see Asuna and Kirito dashing around the arena, shooting the boss while avoiding attacks. Meanwhile, Dillon and the other tanks suffered continuous attacks from the boss.

The 'Giant Gyanak' somehow fired a laser from its horn on the top of its head, as well as slice at the tanks with its pincers. I finally got a clear shot at the boss' wings, hoping to force it to land, however I couldn't push myself to pull the trigger. As much as I knew I should, I couldn't. My hand froze as it touched the trigger and the thoughts of the man who I shot so many years ago flooded my mind. As the other snipers fired away, I sat there, too scared to do anything.

"Watch out!" I heard Asuna yell as the boss pulled out a new attack called 'Leech Strike'. He launched a tiny needle-like object from his feet, and it pierced right through one of the tanks. Their HP slowly dropped as the boss' went up. No other boss had a life draining move.

"Sinon, are you alright?" Kirito asked which caused me to jump as I didn't know he was there.

"I-I'm fine." I told him.

"No, you're not. What's wrong, Sinon?" Kirito asked me again.

"I-I just...I don't know if I can do it." I admitted. "I can't...I can't pull the trigger, Kirito..."

"Sinon, listen to me. You CAN do this." Kirito said. He grabbed my hand and guided it toward the trigger. Carefully, we pulled the trigger together. I flinched a little bit from the loud gunshot so close, but was satisfied when I saw the bullet his the boss' pincer. The boss wailed in pain, allowing time for the other players to attack it.

"Thanks, Kirito." I told him.

"Like I said, you can do it. If you need my help, just yell." He said before rushing back into battle. I sat there for a few seconds, taking a deep breath before looking back through my scope at the boss. I hadn't noticed it before, but there was some sort of eye on the bottom of his stomach. As the boss slowly flew through the air, launching lasers at more players, I aimed at the eye and pulled the trigger. It was a direct hit. The boss froze for a moment before falling to the ground.

"I-Is it dead?" I asked to nobody in particular. The boss had stopped moving, or making any sound at all so everybody started cheering and congratulating me on making the 'winning shot'. However, something didn't feel right. The boss was easy...too easy. As a few of the players started inspecting the boss, it started moving once again, causing everyone to run away from it.

The boss got back up, and started changing appearance. The horn on its head had separated into three separate horns. It's dark blue color had morphed into a pure white as it's wings had become enormous. Its pincers had changed to black and also separated into two large pincers with a smaller pincer on the outer side of each. The boss also now switched in between walking on four, and walking on two legs. It was now called 'Giant Gyanak: Origin'. The boss roared in anger as it unleased a new attack, 'Drill Smash'. It sent one of its pincers flying toward a group of players. All of them dodged the pincer drill, but it then sent a small shockwave with injured three of them.

"I guess this fight isn't over yet!" Asuna said as everyone prepared their guns and charged toward the newly transformed boss. I tried to get a clear shot at the boss, but it moved around quickly, not allowing any room to shoot at any one particular spot. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger, hoping to hit something. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The bullet merely grazed the boss' wings, but also alerted him to the snipers.

The boss turned toward me and the other snipers with a glare, before roaring and charging forward, using his 'Drill Smash' attack again. Two players were hit straight one, killing them, while another two were injured by the shockwaves. The boss was now dead set on killing all the snipers. He sliced at all the snipers, killing them one by one, until it came time for it to kill me. I tried to get away, but it shut me out from other players with its pincers. It looked at me with its red eyes before sending a triple laser beam straight at me.

"SINON!" Kirito shouted as he ran toward me. The next thing I knew, Kirito tackled me to the ground, just barely getting me out of the way of the lasers. Kirito, wasn't so lucky as half of his leg was disintegrated from the laser. "Are you okay?" Kirito asked.

"I could be asking you the same thing." I said shocked by what he had done. I looked over his shoulder to see the boss now distracted by the other players.

"I can always regen." Kirito explained panting.

"You reckless idiot." I said slightly chuckling. Kirito got off me and sat beside me, waiting for his leg to regen so he could rejoin the fight. Meanwhile, I looked at the rest of the fight through my scope, seeing the players actually using their swords as shields to the boss' attacks. Well, at least the one without shields normally. I could see Klein using his sword as a way to deflect the lasers, while still using the handgun he bought.

"I should probably get back in there." Kirito said as his leg regened back and he stood up.

"Don't go dying on me." I told him.

"You too." Kirito joked as he ran in with two pistols in hand.

* * *

The boss fight afterwards was pretty repetitive, and I only got a few shots in. The boss didn't pay any attention to me because I was the only one who was shooting from far away, and apparently it decided it would be better to focus on the large group of people. After an hour of fighting, it died, for real that time. Now, everyone was resting up in the arena and sorting through their new loot. Well, almost everyone. Dillon and Kirito were looking at the floor manual NPCs gave out on each floor.

"What are you guys looking at?" Asuna asked the two boys.

"Well, according to this, the Gyanak used to be a common species in this place." Dillon explained.

"What?" I questioned.

"Apparently, scientists had created an artificial species, known as the Gyanak. As the world became more polluted, the Gyanak absorbed it as a way of 'fixing' the world. Eventually, this gave the Gyanak special powers, like lasers and wings. With these new powers, the Gyanak started attacking humans, to the point of near extinction. As a last attempt to save the world, scientists created an even more powerful Gyanak. Which, under their control, would kill of the rest. They named this the Giant Gyanak." Kirito told us.

"So, what about the whole, transforming thing?" Asuna asked.

"Excellent question! You see, as the Giant Gyanak killed off other Gyanak, it got more powerful, giving it four pincers as well as three horns. After all the Gyanak were dead, people no longer needed the Giant Gyanak, which it didn't approve of. In a cruel twist of fate, the Giant Gyanak turned against people, trying to prolong its life. However, what remained of the human race concealed the Gyanak to this tower and also confined the power of the dead Gyanak into the eye, that Sinon shot. They named the transformed Gyanak, Giant Gyanak: Origin, and the Gyanak we originally saw when we came in here, the Giant Gyanak." Dillon finished.

"Damn. That's a long origin story for a boss." I joked.

"It also made very little sense." Asuna added.

"I understood it." Dillon muttered.

"You two also said 'Gyanak' more than normal people should." I pointed out.

"We never claimed to be normal." Kirito said chuckling.

 **I don't know why I felt the need to make an origin story for the Giant Gyanak. I just did. I mainly just wanted a reason for it to be called Giant Gyanak: Origin, so it would abbreviate to GGO. As reference, Gyanak it pronounced Guy-a-nak. Thanks for reading!**


	25. Scorching Desert Companions

**Finally, we will be getting into the viewer submitted stories. Now, there is one floor that I planned to do for this chapter, but it actually requires me to do some research and I still haven't done that yet. So, instead I will do this desert floor submitted by eragon5443 and will do the other chapter next. Probably. I'll do it eventually. As another little note, don't expect too many boss fights in the upcoming chapters. I honestly don't like to write them very much, mainly because it is just a big mess of attacks until the boss dies.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

Floor 79 complete. The boss wasn't all that hard to be honest. We didn't lose anybody so that's an improvement from the last few fights. As the assault team teleported to floor 80, we were met with a blinding light. After a few minutes, my eyes started adjusting to the light, and I noticed several things. First of all, it was hot as hell there! Most of the guild had removed their coats, gloves and other thick armor in a matter of minutes, and were still all sweating. Second, there was no village in sight. As far as I could tell at least. All that I could see was white sand in all directions, a ton of rocks and a few cactus' spread around the area.

"Attention, assault team! We are going to all split up into groups of seven and look for the safe zone. If you find it, you will message the other groups your coordinates." Heathcliff explained to all of us. Dillon, Asuna, Sinon and I immediately went to each other's sides.

"Any chance I could join in?" Agil asked as he walked up to us.

"I don't know...what do you guys think?" Dillon asked us sarcastically.

"200 col and we let you in." Sinon joked.

"How about, I join for free?" Agil questioned.

"You drive a hard bargain...I guess we can accept." Dillon joked.

"Such a great deal that was..." Asuna said rolling her eyes.

"Do you mind if I hope on that bandwagon?" Klein asked sheepishly.

"What about your guild?" I asked.

"There are eight members in my guild." Klein said.

"And they rejected the leader?" Sinon guessed.

"I just didn't get to them fast enough! So, can I join or what?" Klein asked again.

"Why not?" I asked rhetorically.

"That makes six of us." Asuna pointed out. "We just need one more."

"We can do math, Asuna." Dillon told her, earning him a glare from the orange-haired girl.

"Can I join?" A girl wearing a cloak asked us.

"Um...sure, I guess." I said to her. I couldn't see her face clearly but from what I could see, she had brown eyes.

"Two questions. What's your name and why are you wearing a CLOAK in the DESERT!?" Dillon asked loudly.

"My name is Ashley." The girl said.

"Okay, but the cloak?" Dillon asked again.

"We should probably get moving. The other groups have already left." Ashley said and began to walk off into the desert.

"But that didn't answer my question!" Dillon complained before chasing after the cloaked girl.

* * *

The next few hours weren't very eventful. Dillon asked a few more times about the cloak but he eventually stopped. Agil and Klein were discussing when we should stop for the night, and Asuna was just walking quietly by herself.

"What do you think is up with that Ashley girl?" Sinon asked me.

"I don't know. She's kind of quiet and mysterious." I pointed out.

"Kind of like when we first met Asuna, huh?" Sinon said chuckling a little.

"Yeah, I guess. She doesn't have a weapon equipped though." I noticed.

"It's not like we have needed one. We haven't seen anything besides sand and each other for the past 3 hours." Sinon told me.

"Fair point, where is everything? You would think that we would've seen something, anything after all this time of walking." I said.

"Maybe one of the other groups found the village." Sinon suggested.

"Hey guys, the sun is going down. I think we should call it quits for the night." Klein told us. As the seven of us prepared a place to sleep, the silence was interrupted by Klein's stomach growling.

"I guess we haven't eaten anything since the boss fight." Agil said.

"What do we do?" Ashley asked.

"I honestly don't know..." Agil admitted.

"We need to get something to eat." Dillon pointed out.

"I think I have an idea." I told the others as a ton of monsters started coming out of the ground and from under rocks.

* * *

It didn't take very long to hunt enough food for all of us. While Sinon and I hunted, Agil had set up a fire with some spare items he had in his inventory and Ashley, Dillon, Klein and Asuna made us places to sleep out of the sand.

"Not the worst I've ever had." Agil said as he started eating.

"At least it's something." I said happily.

"We're lucky that the monsters that live around here don't attack players unless we attack first." Klein told us.

"Yeah, I wonder if they do get aggressive somehow." Sinon wondered.

"Best not to think about it." Asuna said.

"Aren't you going to eat, Ashley?" Dillon questioned the still-cloaked girl who's food was untouched.

"No. I'm not hungry." Ashley told him. Somehow, this sparked a conversation between the two of them, which I didn't pay any attention to. After dinner was finished, Agil and Klein were asleep in a matter of minutes and Dillon was put on watch for a few hours to make sure the monsters didn't turn hostile.

"Hey...Kirito..." I heard Sinon whisper to me.

"What?" I asked yawning.

"Are you cold?" She asked.

"Not really. Then again, I reequipped my coat, so my word might not be the best to go by." I told her.

"Do you have another coat?" Sinon asked me.

"Um..." I said opening my inventory. No coat, sadly. "Here." I said giving her mine.

"No, it's fine, Kirito." Sinon told me.

"Take it." I insisted. "After all, you did help me get it." I said handing her the same coat I had gotten back on the first floor boss fight.

"Seems like almost yesterday." Sinon said reminiscing about our first boss fight together. She eventually did take the coat. Even if I was freezing now, I smiled thinking of the morning when she would be begging me to take it back because of the heat.

* * *

 **Dillon's POV**

Ashley. The cloaked girl. I had never noticed her before today, so I assumed she wasn't in the Knights of the Blood Oath. However, I couldn't stop thinking about her all day. She was so quiet and mysterious. I didn't get it. She avoids nearly every question I ask. She didn't even go to sleep that night. All she did was sit in her spot. Not sleeping, not talking.

"Why are you still awake?" I asked after however long of silence. "Everybody else is fast asleep, yet you're just sitting there."

"I have my reasons. Mostly I just can't sleep." Ashley told me.

"You can't if you're just sitting there." I joked.

"It's not that." Ashley said.

"Then what is it?" I questioned.

"Nothing that you need to know." Ashley snapped.

"That just makes me more curious." I admitted. "Bad dream?"

"No, not exactly." Ashley said. "It's something that this cloak reminds me of."

"Then, why do you wear it if it stops you from sleeping?" I questioned.

"Well-" Ashley began before the wind started blowing fiercely, blowing sand toward all of us. A message quickly appeared on my screen.

"Warning! Sandstorm approaching!" The message warned.

"Everybody, get up!" I yelled to my friends, sending the five of them jolting awake. The message soon appeared in front of them as well. I vaguely remembered learning about dust storms in school, but after two years, my memory was a little foggy. Luckily, Kirito for some reason knew what to do and I filled in the blanks he didn't know. Everybody got a spare piece of cloth equipment from their inventory, and used it to protect their face. There was no shelter in sight, so we just crouched down and tried to avoid getting hit by something.

"Stay down!" Kirito ordered everyone as the sandstorm started to hit. It felt like a million tiny bugs were slapping me in the face every second. Time felt almost as if it was slower than usual, as the sandstorm continued. After roughly an hour of waiting for the storm to pass, Ashley's cloak was ripped off by the wind. It didn't take long for her to start running after it, despite the storm.

"Ashley, get back here!" Agil shouted at the girl, but she either couldn't hear or didn't care because she just kept chasing after it. I decided to take action and chase after her, with even more protests than Ashley got. I equipped my shield and used it as a way to defend myself against the numerous desert items that were flying around in the sandstorm. Eventually, I found Ashley, curled up on the ground, clutching her cloak like her life depended on it.

"ASHLEY!" I yelled to her, but she didn't move. I could see her breathing, so I just assumed she didn't want to risk getting hit by anything and she just stayed still. I moved next to her and used my shield to defend to the two of us for the next hour until the storm finally passed. "Ashley?" I asked again after all the wind had died down.

"Thank you." Ashley said turning to face me. For the first time, I could actually see her face. She had brown eyes, and purple hair which went down over her shoulders. Ashley then stood up and put on her cloak.

"You know, you don't have to wear that all the time." I told her.

"I want to," Ashley said as she lowered her hood "But I guess I don't have to hide behind it." Ashley said turning toward me. "We should get back to the others."

"Oh, oh yeah, right. Of course." I said not even realizing I was staring at her. As we returned to my friends, we were quickly scolded by Asuna and Kirito. More of me than her, because they didn't know her as well as they do me. I couldn't help but notice the small smile of Ashley's face throughout the entire yelling session.

 **Did you guys want more OCs? Oh well, too bad. I honestly did not have Ashley planned when I started writing this chapter. It just happened. However, I do think that she will be apart of the little group of main characters. So, be prepared for that. This will also be the only desert chapter, because I got done all I wanted to get done. Once again, I want to thank** **eragon5443 for submitting this desert idea. It may not of turned out exactly as you might've wanted it, but I tried my best. Thanks for reading!**


	26. Hell Dungeon

**Before we begin, I have to give a shoutout to the people who suggested the idea for this floor. Now, two people requested very similar ideas so I decided to combine them.** **Kyrigun through a review suggested a floor based around demons from Japanese folklore and DemonHunter52 suggested a floor based on demons from the game series Devil May Cry. Since they were both focused on types of demons, I figured it would be redundant to have two floors so I thought I would just combine them. Now, I myself have not played Devil May Cry, but I have done some research on the game so hopefully I can do a good job of portraying the series.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

After the harsh desert and a somewhat challenging camel boss, we arrived on floor 81. According to some of the locals, it was called the Devil Kingdom or the Demon World, however Dillon simply just called it Hell. As the names would suggest, the floor was crawling with all sorts of terrifying creatures and demons. Asuna had recognized some of the demons from old legends she used to read about so that helped out a lot when trying to beat them, but after nearly three years of being trapped in this death game, she has forgotten some things.

"If these are just the regular enemies we're going to hate fighting the boss." Dillon said as he sheathed his sword after killing a Kappa which, according to Asuna, is a very ruthless demon.

"Says the one who just killed that thing in less than ten seconds." Ashley remarked sarcastically.

"Ten seconds is more than enough time to die." Dillon joked. The two of them had become friends over the last few days, and while Ashley still was shy around us, she was always more lively when she hung out with Dillon. I assumed it was because he went after her during the sandstorm, but Sinon thought there was more to it.

"We'll never get a chance to fight the boss if we don't keep moving. The dungeon is just up ahead. Now, let's get going!" Asuna told them.

"Yes ma'am!" Dillon joked saluting to Asuna, causing all of us to start laughing (except Asuna).

"Can you at least TRY to take this seriously?" Asuna asked glaring at him before marching off toward the dungeon. Lately, Asuna has been a lot angrier. She's been getting into constant arguments and yelling more than normal. Naturally, being in a death game is enough to make anyone easy to set off but since the desert, she has been more aggressive than normal.

"Hey Kirito, quick question." Sinon began.

"What?" I asked.

"Aren't Sins supposed to carry scissors?" Sinon questioned.

"Yeah, why?" I wondered. Sins were some of the more basic enemies on this floor and for some reason carried a pair of scissors. Their appearance had mostly black for the body like most enemies in Hell, and their skin was green. They could fly and go through walls but despite all that, they are some of the easier enemies to defeat.

"Look at those ones." Sinon said pointing to a few Sins that were flying through the air. They looked similar to ones that we had already seen, except that these ones were carrying scythes, not scissors.

"I guess they are a new type of Sin." I told her. Before we could discuss it more, two Sins spotted us and flew down toward us already prepared to swing their scythes right through Sinon and I. The two of us quickly dodged out of the way and drew our weapons. I used by dual swords to block their attacks while Sinon started throwing her knives.

"Look out!" I heard Ashley yell as she slashed at the two Sins with her...dual knives!? While the Sins were briefly stunned, Dillon used a sword skill to finish them off.

"Nailed it." Dillon said to himself.

"Hold on a second! How do you have two knives?" I asked the cloaked girl.

"I bought two of them at the shop and equipped them." Ashley joked.

"I meant using them at the same time. I thought you needed the dual wielding skill to have that." I said.

"It's a simple flaw in the system. Since you can use a weapon left or right handed, the game's programming also allows to have a weapon equipped on both hands at the same time." Ashley said.

"I know that! But you shouldn't be able to use skills with both hands." I pointed out.

"Another flaw. All I have to do is use a sword skill right handed, and a different one left handed and vise versa. The only difference between this and what you use is that you can use the same skill on both weapons at the same time." Ashley explained.

"Why don't people use that more?" I questioned.

"We're eighty floors into this game, do you think people would just all of a sudden switch their play style after all this time?" Ashley asked rhetorically.

"Fair point." Sinon said.

"What's taking you guys so long?" Asuna yelled from the dungeon entrance.

"We're coming!" Sinon assured her.

* * *

"How long is this dungeon?" Dillon complained as entered another floor of the dungeon. As of right now, we are at the eighth floor of this dungeon.

"The reward better be worth it." Sinon muttered.

"Maybe this we'll come across the boss room." I said hopefully.

"I think we might have." Asuna said as we surveyed this floor. It looked very similar to a boss room, only smaller. The torches began to light up as they usually do during boss fights, leading me to worry that we are being forced to fight a boss with only five people.

"Hello there, travelers." A figure said as the room fully lit up. The figure had a skull covering their face and goggles on their forehead. You could see the multiple scars and ripped pieces of his skin on him, revealing bones underneath.

"Who are you?" I wondered. Bosses shouldn't be able to speak to players, so maybe this actually was a player.

"My name is Kyrun. I am a Shinigami." The figure said.

"A Sh-Shinigami?" Asuna said nervously.

"What's a Shinigami?" Dillon asked.

"Death gods." Asuna answered.

"Oh...that could be a problem." Dillon said turning back towards Kyrun. Three health bars had appeared next to Kyrun, so he wasn't a player. However, he had too little health to be a boss, so I assumed he was a mid-boss. Mid-bosses have been showing up more recently in the boss dungeons, so we know we're at the right place.

"Yes, it is quite a problem...for you..." Kyrun said before sprouting wings out of his back summoning a black sword. The sword was all jagged on the edges and had some engraving on it that I couldn't decipher. Kyrun dashed forward and tried to attack Dillon, but Dillon quickly blocked with his shield. I attempted to hit him with a 'Vertical Slash' but Kyrun quickly dodged. Sinon continuously tried to hit him with her knives, but he easily dodged them. This guy may not have much health, but damn he is fast.

"Asuna, Ashley, attack from the sides! Dillon you cut him off from behind!" I shouted charging straight ahead toward Kyrun.

"You know, you would do a lot better if you didn't shout out your plans." Kyrun said as he swiftly got out of the way of the attacks, leading Asuna and Ashley to accidently hit each other with their attacks.

"He is a computer, yet he can not only compute what we're saying but also adapt his strategy accordingly. How is that possible?" I wondered. As Dillon, Asuna, Ashley and I tried to attack Kyrun, he was easily able to dodge our attacks by just flying out of our reach. That was until Sinon threw a knife that pierced through one of his wings, sending Kyrun straight to the ground. Asuna and I quickly attacked him both with a 'Quadruple Strike' knocking out one of his health bars, but before we could continue attacking, he leaped out of the way. When I could see him again, Kyrun was across the room.

"Congratulations, you have limited by mobility...in the air." Kyrun said smiling as he pulled his goggles down to his eye sockets. "However, you are not nearly done." With that, Kyrun launched a beam of darkness out of his sword with perfect accuracy, as it directly hit Dillon's sword hand. Dillon shouted in pain and dropped his sword quickly.

"What the hell?" I wondered. Dillon's hand now had some sort of dark energy surrounding it.

"The fun is only just beginning." Kyrun told us.

 **Once again, I want to say that Kyrun (Ky-rune) is just a name I thought of on the spot. As the ending would suggest, we will be spending at least one more chapter in Hell. FUN FACT: I was going to have Kyrun be the actual boss of the floor because Shinigami are awesome however after researching Devil May Cry for this chapter, I decided to go with a different boss from that game. I again want to thank Kyrigun who suggested demons from Japanese folklore and** **DemonHunter52 who suggested demons from Devil May Cry. Happy New Year (at least if you are reading this New Years)! Thanks for reading!**


	27. Hell Dungeon Part 2

**Kirito's POV**

"The fun is only just beginning." Kyrun said chuckling. Asuna immediately dashed forward and tried to attack Kyrun, but he easily parried the blow and knocked Asuna away.

"What the hell?" Dillon said to himself as he tried to pick up his sword, but couldn't. It was like there was a barrier that prevented Dillon from grabbing his sword. Dillon tried again with his other hand, which worked, but he still couldn't hold his shield in his right hand.

"Did you think that dark energy was just for show? You can't grab any items or weapons with your right hand until you beat me." Kyrun said smirking. Luckily, Dillon was ambidextrous so he could use his sword with his left hand, but he had to unequip his shield.

"Kirito, you distract him while Dillon and Ashley will charge from the left. Asuna will take the right." Sinon whispered to me. I nodded and started running around the room.

"Look at you. Thinking your so tough with your two swords. Why don't I cut you down to size?" Kyrun said shooting another dark energy beam with perfect accuracy at my right hand. Elucidator fell out of my hand and I fell to the ground. My hand felt like it was on fire and being cut off every second.

"Kirito!" Sinon shouted worried before trying to run over to me.

"Not so fast!" Kyrun yelled before running in front of her, and using his sword to knock into the ground.

"Sinon!" I yelled.

"Hahaha! Here I was thinking this group might actually be a threat." Kyrun said laughing as he raised his sword high. "But it turns out your nothing but losers!" He yelled before bringing his sword down with full force onto Sinon's wrist. I could hear her cry out in pain.

"Stay away from her!" I shouted as I got up and slashed at him with Dark Repulser.

"Aw...is she important to you?" Kyrun asked sarcastically. He lifted his sword up once again and aimed for my chest. I was barely able to raise Dark Repulser up in time to parry the blow. As our swords were locked, Kyrun stared at me with an evil grin. "I find it amazing you continue to fight even though you have no chance of winning. Wouldn't it be easier to just give up?" He asked before kicking me in the abdomen knocking me into the ground next to Sinon.

"Surprise!" Ashley shouted as she sliced at his head with her knives. Kyrun almost dodged it, instead getting part of his left arm cut off but wasn't able to get away from Ashley follow up attack, which cut off his whole arm.

"Double team!" Dillon said coming up from his right side and slicing off that arm as well. Before the two could finish him off, he raced to the other side of the room, then turned to us.

"What? Do you think your some kind of heroes? Your power in here, and all that I am, it's all just lines of code. It's fake! Your all just weak! Weak and pathetic!" Kyrun shouted at us as he stood there, defenseless. Luckily, Asuna shut him up by lunging from the side and lodging her rapier into his side, causing him to collapse as his final health bar quickly depleted. "Listen to me or don't. I don't give a damn. But you can't escape from here. It's all a lie!" Kyrun yelled as he ran out of HP and exploded into polygons. Asuna recovered her rapier and sat down like the rest of us for a rest. The dark energy on Dillon and I's hands had faded away after a minute or so.

"He was...really weird." Sinon said to me at last.

"He was a Shinigami, so what do you expect?" I joked.

"I mean what he said. Kyrun mentioned how he was just lines of code. He knows he's in a game. He knows that this is all fake and we're trapped here. How?" Sinon questioned.

"Beats me. Maybe that's just the dialogue Kayaba gave him." I told her.

"Still, that doesn't explain how he could comprehend what we were saying and adapt his attack patterns accordingly." Sinon pointed out.

"I got nothing." I told her.

* * *

After another hour of going through dungeon floors, we found the boss room and reported back to Heathcliff. Now, two days later, it's time for the boss battle. Heathcliff slowly opened the boss door and the torches surrounding the boss room slowly lit up. Instead of some dark, dangerous demon like I was expecting to see, in the center of the room was a man. He had white hair, blue eyes and a blue coat over his vest and dark green pants. He had fingerless gloves on, with one hand at his side and the other clinging to his sword.

"Are you all prepared?" The man asked. His health bars hadn't shown up yet but the name had. 'Vergil', it said.

"Yes." Heathcliff told him. Vergil smiled.

"Then, let's begin." Vergil said as a blinding light spread throughout the room. When I opened my eyes, Vergil was no longer in the room. Instead replaced with a demon with glowing orange eyes. His skin was pitch black, but was glowing somehow. There was blue lines on his body, making them look like veins and he was wearing a purple cape. The demon picked up a massive sword and got into a fighting stance. Five health bars appeared next to him and the name 'Vergil' disappeared from above him. It was now replaced with 'Nelo Angelo'.

"Attack!" Heathcliff shouted as roughly a dozen shield users charged forward. Nelo Angelo raised up his sword at a slow pace, but when he finally slammed it down on the shield users, it knocked them back a good six feet as well as do a bit of damage to them.

"Great. More shockwave attacks." Sinon said sarcastically as she started throwing knives at Nelo Angelo. I ran forward prepared to attack him with 'Starburst Stream', but he unleashed a spinning attack, killing two players and knocking away anyone within ten feet of him. I saw Ashley run up behind him and try to attack, only for her attacks to not faze him. He swung his sword around and hit her square on the stomach, sending her flying. Ashley's HP was now in the low yellow from that one attack.

"Damn. This guy doesn't mess around." I said to myself before charging back up to him. I used a 'Vertical Slash', which he easily blocked with his sword, but this left him open to be stabbed from the side by Heathcliff. He attempted to do another spin attack to knock everyone away, but Dillon and another player I didn't recognize blocked his sword from hitting anyone. As players began to wail on Nelo Angelo, at some point the demon got furious and unleashed tons of explosive energy beams that blasted everyone away from him.

"How do we beat this guy?" I heard Sinon say as she prepared to throw another knife. Heathcliff and Asuna charged at Nelo Angelo from both sides of him, and Nelo Angelo only had time to block Asuna's attack, leaving him to get stabbed in the back by Heathcliff.

"Now!" Heathcliff yelled. Everyone rushed forward and once again launched all they could at the boss. They held down his sword and made sure Nelo Angelo couldn't use anymore explosive beams. I could see Nelo Angelo flinch almost every second as he was hit by an onslaught of attacks. It only took a little while to get him down to one health bar. The name above Nelo Angelo again changed, as it usually did when a boss was using a skill, but this time, it wasn't interrupted like it normally should when the boss takes damage. 'Judgement Cut', the text changed to. All of a sudden, Nelo Angelo knocked everyone away from him with some sort of energy, reclaimed his sword and used his skill. One after another, he used 'Judgement Cut' killing four more players and sending most into the red. Heathcliff luckily was able to block 'Judgement Cut' with his shield, and stabbed Nelo Angelo once again.

"Kirito! Quadruple Strike, now!" Asuna yelled to me as she ran toward Nelo Angelo. I joined her in running and we both attacked the boss with 'Quadruple Strike'. Heathcliff then attacked the distracted boss one more time and finished him off. We had won.

 **I honestly don't know how well I mimicked Vergil from the games, but I did my best from what I read up on. I decided to go with his Nelo Angelo form because it just looked more fun to fight in my opinion. Thanks for reading!**


	28. Winter Activities

**Before we begin, I have an announcement to make about the rest of this story. I have said this multiple times to people through PM's, but I don't think I have ever formally mentioned it in the story. Yes, I will be covering the ALO arc (and potentially the GGO arc, I haven't decided yet). However, with the beginning of the ALO arc, comes the end of the SAO arc. Now calm down, this isn't the last chapter. There are still 4-5 chapters left in this story.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"Why do we h-have to spend the day h-here? In the c-cold?" Asuna asked shivering. Currently, we were on floor 86, which was covered in ice and snow.

"I agree. Literally anywhere else would've been better." Ashley said.

"Maybe if you two would put on the coats you bought, you wouldn't be cold." Dillon suggested, but both of them refused. Ashley had said that she wouldn't where a coat because it would cover up the cloak she wore (not sure why she's so intent on wearing it) and Asuna didn't give a reason. She just said 'I don't need it' even though she clearly did.

"It was actually Sinon's choice, so blame her." I pointed out.

"Hey!" Sinon said loudly as she hit the back of my head.

"Don't we have to train for the next boss raid?" Asuna questioned.

"Well, if you would be so kind as to check today's date, it is exactly three years since we all got trapped in this death game." Dillon said happier than he probably should be when saying something like that.

"Then we should be training to get out, not spending the day in some ice field." Asuna told him.

"Asuna, Heathcliff gave us the day off. If you want to be lame and train, go ahead. However, Kirito, Sinon and I are going to spend our day having fun." Dillon explained.

"I guess one more day in this place wouldn't hurt. Count me in!" Ashley said high-fiving Dillon.

"Fine..." Asuna said reluctantly.

"So, what are we doing first?" I asked before being pelted in the face by a snowball. I wiped the snow off my face to see Sinon laughing with another snowball in her hand. I looked over at Dillon to see him getting double-teamed by Asuna and Ashley.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" Dillon asked me.

"We should probably run." I suggested before Sinon, Ashley and Asuna started their onslaught of snowballs.

* * *

"You guys lost bad." Ashley taunted as Dillon and I sat in the snow defeated.

"You guys were using your weapons to deflect our shots. It wasn't fair." Dillon pointed out.

"You never said we couldn't." Sinon told him.

"She makes a good point." I said to Dillon.

"Who's side are you on?" Dillon asked me.

"Now what?" Asuna asked.

"This." Sinon said pushing Asuna onto ice on the ground causing her to start sliding around.

"Not funny!" Asuna said trying to maintain her balance as we laughed.

"I bet I can slide on the ice without falling off longer than you." Ashley told Dillon.

"You're on!" Dillon said jumping out of the snow as the two of them raced onto the ice, only for the two to immediately fall.

"You want to try?" I asked Sinon.

"Yes!" Sinon said happily as she pulled me out of the snow. As Sinon slid all around the ice, she glared at me because I was walking on the ice like I normally would anywhere else.

"How is that possible?" Dillon questioned as he fell again.

"Enchant your boots with 'Terrain Defense'." I told him. "No matter where you are, mud, sand or ice, you won't be affected by it."

"That's cheating!" Sinon complained.

"You're just mad because I won this time." I said smirking.

"Possibly." Sinon said trying to stand correctly. Before she could fall again, she grabbed my arm for support. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me." Sinon said as she yanked on my arm, causing both of us to fall to the ground laughing along with Asuna, Dillon and Ashley.

* * *

"Any other activities you guys have planned?" Ashley asked.

"There is a mini-boss in the area..." Dillon began.

"NO!" Asuna and Sinon yelled at the same time.

"It is around our level..." I added.

"NO!" Asuna and Sinon repeated louder than last time.

"Then what do you guys think we should do?" Dillon asked.

"Well...um..." Asuna said trying to think of something.

"Mini-boss!" Ashley yelled.

"NO!" Asuna and Sinon shouted again.

"Overruled." Dillon said as the Dillon, Ashley and I stood next to each other.

"Oh god dammit." Sinon said.

* * *

"This isn't so bad." Dillon said as he dodged an 'Ice Breath' attack from the mini-boss. It was called the 'Frozen Menace' which I assumed was some related to its inspiration. It looked just like a dragon but according to Asuna, it was a wyvern (whatever those are).

"This is VERY bad!" Asuna shouted as she dodged another attack from the mini-boss.

"Sinon! Distract him for me!" I yelled. Sinon nodded and started running around below the mini-boss, tossing knives at it. The mini-boss immediately turned its attention to Sinon, trying to freeze and slash at her.

"I hope this works." I said to myself as I jumped and bounced off one of the ice crystals in the area. With the mini-boss being at a low height trying to attack Sinon, I managed to jump on the back. I activated my 'Starburst Stream' skill and unleashed it on the back of the boss as Sinon ran away. Once the combo was over, the mini-boss fell to the ground with only a tiny bit of HP left. Dillon and Ashley ran in from both sides of the 'Frozen Menace', slicing its head off and killing it.

"See, now was that so hard?" Dillon asked Asuna sarcastically.

"Why didn't its head disappear?" Sinon wondered as she stared at the decapitated head of the mini-boss.

"If you cut off the head of an enemy as you kill it, the game will register them as two separate entities and only despawn the body." Ashley explained.

"Okay, but if you knew that why did you cut its head off?" Sinon questioned.

"Well Sinon, wouldn't this look great mounted on a wall?" Dillon asked.

"We are NOT putting a monster's head on our wall." I told him.

"Hey, half the wall is mine. I can do what I want with it." Dillon countered.

"Can't argue with that logic." Ashley said backing Dillon up.

"I don't even know how to argue it." I admitted.

 **I probably should've saved the announcement for this section...oh well. Thanks for reading!**


	29. New Recruit

**Sinon's POV**

"What do you think Heathcliff needs us for?" Kirito asked as the two of us walked to Heathcliff's room. We had received a message from him asking to come there for reasons he wouldn't specify.

"Probably a dungeon raid or something." I guessed.

"Then why would he only message the two of us?" Kirito questioned.

"How should I know?" I joked as we entered his room.

"Ah, you two are finally here. Please, take a seat." Heathcliff offered. The two of us sat down, and then Heathcliff's expression turned serious.

"Why did you call us here?" Kirito asked.

"As you two should very well know, the assault team's numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate." Heathcliff began. "As of right now, there are roughly 80 people left in the assault team."

"We still have twelve floors left. I think we can handle it." I told him.

"That was also my initial reaction. That was until Asuna came up to me after the floor 87 boss battle. She explained to me that the boss not only recognized, but reacted accordingly to her, as well as everyone else's, attack patterns. Asuna also told me that the same thing happened on floor 81 with the mid-boss, is that correct?" Heathcliff asked.

"Yes, we barely managed to beat him." I said.

"With this increasing intelligence, I began to worry if we would manage to make it out of the game. So, I accepted many more members into the Knights of the Blood Oath." Heathcliff told us.

"What are their levels?" Kirito asked.

"Around 50." Heathcliff responded.

"Are you crazy!? There's no way level 50 players could take on these kind of bosses!" Kirito yelled.

"Calm down. I am fully aware of this. That is why I called you here. I have taken some of our best fighters and assigned them to these new recruits to prepare them for the boss fights." Heathcliff explained. After that, it was obvious why he called us here.

"So, you want us to train a new recruit?" I guessed.

"Precisely." Heathcliff said nodding.

* * *

Kirito and I quickly agreed to training them, understanding the need for more members of the assault team. Heathcliff assigned us to wait at the coffee shop on floor 47 for the new recruit. They were supposed to be here half an hour ago.

"This is getting ridiculous." Kirito complained as he scrolled through his inventory for the tenth time with nothing better to do.

"Maybe we should message Heathcliff about-" I began before the doors to the shop swung open with a familiar face walking through.

"Sinon! Kirito!" My old friend, Silica, said happily as she ran over to our table.

"Silica!? What are you doing here?" Kirito questioned.

"After we revived Pina, I started living here because it was so beautiful. Then, a few days ago I heard that the Knights of the Blood Oath was accepting members of all strengths so I decided to help out and join." Silica said smiling. "Heathcliff sent me a message telling me that you two would be my teachers so I wanted to be super prepared for today but I may or may not of overslept."

"So, you want to join the assault team?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think it would be better for me to help out with clearing the game in anyway I can, rather than just sit at home waiting for the game to be cleared." Silica explained.

"I'm going to warn you, it's not going to be easy." Kirito told her.

"That's okay. I can handle it!" Silica said confidently.

* * *

"This is not okay!" Silica said jumping around trying to avoid attacks by the mini-boss. Kirito had the bright idea of tackling at floor 60 dungeon. While it would be a piece of cake for Kirito and I, it was turning out to be very difficult for Silica. We had reached the mid-boss which, like all enemies in this dungeon, immediately turned its attacks to Silica. "Remind me why this is a good idea!"

"Since you're so low leveled, you draw the aggro of the monsters. Then, Sinon and I can defeat them with ease and, since we're in a party, you get some of the experience." Kirito explained as he tried to attack the mini-boss. It seemed like a decent strategy. The only problem was that this boss was very agile, and so was Silica. So, while the two of them are jumping all around the room, Kirito and I can barely land any hits on them.

"Try luring the monster over here!" I told her.

"Don't you think I've tried that!?" Silica yelled as she barely managed to escape the monster's claws. The monster seemed to be a large wolf, about the size of Gleam Eyes, with no eyes, but instead orange gas pouring out of its eye sockets and mouth. The monster also seemed to have shackles on its legs, which seemed to be just for looks because as far as I can tell, they aren't weak spots or used for attacking. Its claws and fangs were the size of swords and the monster's name was 'Fenrir'. Seemed like an odd name, so I just assumed it was based on some myth that Asuna knows all about. However, there was an odd symbol next to its name. I had seen it on some other weak enemies on the lower floors, but had never seen it on a mini-boss, much less one on floor 60.

"Pina! Use Ice Breath on its legs!" Silica commanded as her pet dragon fired the ice beam at Fenrir's legs, which stopped Fenrir for a second before it broke through the ice with ease. Luckily, Silica was on the other side of the room now, so Kirito and I ran to attack the monster. Instead of fighting us, Fenrir leaped over us before trying to slash at Silica.

"SILICA!" Kirito and I shouted trying to reach the girl. Panicking, Silica pulled some sort of card out of gem out of her pocket, and held it up at Fenrir. As Fenrir broke the gem, he started glowing.

"Um...is that normal?" Kirito wondered. Fenrir was suddenly started to shrink and the orb began to put itself back together. Once Fenrir stopped glowing, he was about the size of Pina and was no longer trying to attack Silica.

"It worked..." Silica said shocked before a smile grew across her face. "IT WORKED!"

"What worked? What just happened?" I asked.

"My orb! It worked!" Silica said dancing around like a child happily.

"Can someone please explain to me what just happened?" Kirito questioned.

"Okay, so a while back, I bought this orb from an NPC because I could supposedly tame a second beast with it." Silica explained. "I was saving it for a monster I heard about on floor 55 that had a lot of health and attacking power. I was going to use Pina alongside it so she could keep healing them, but I had no idea I could tame a mini-boss!"

"Don't you have to have like, a crazy high taming skill in order to tame a mini-boss?" Kirito pointed out. "What's your taming level, Silica?"

"Um..." Silica said checking her stat menu. "250."

"You have it maxed out!?" Kirito said surprised.

"I guess it's because you've had Pina for so long." I guessed.

"Wait, why would you try the orb if you didn't know you could tame a mini-boss?" Kirito asked.

"Because Fenrir had the symbol next to its name. That means it can be tamed. I just didn't know my taming level was that high." Silica told us.

"Why isn't this done more often?" I asked.

"You do need to have your taming skill maxed out in order to tame a mini-boss, and I'm guessing it's only a select few that can be tamed." Kirito explained. "And most of the beast tamers I know just let their monster die for them. It's not like it's hard to get a replacement. I'm guessing your beast taming skill goes down if you let them die."

"Makes sense." I said turning to Silica, who was petting the now small Fenrir.

"So...who's up for another dungeon?" Kirito asked.

"NO!" Silica and I yelled.

 **I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I am happy to say that updates should (hopefully) be back to normal, which is at least one update every two weeks (per story). Onto what actually happened in this chapter. Am I the only one who was disappointed that they didn't do more with Silica? She was there for one episode in SAO and ever since then she's been more of a background character. For those of you who couldn't guess by now, Fenrir is based off of the Norse mythical creature of the same name. His design is more closely resembles the Smite version of him, but that's mainly because he looks a lot better there. Thanks for reading!**


	30. Time Limit

**Hey guys/girls, remember that time that I had you guys vote on Dillon x Asuna or Dillon x Lisbeth and said that Lisbeth would play a bigger role in this story then two chapters later I introduced Ashley? Well, she was kind of the replacement for Lisbeth since rewatching the Lisbeth episode of SAO, I realized just how underdeveloped she was. Underused, underdeveloped female character from the SAO arc...why does that sound familiar? Anyway, I couldn't think of a situation where Lisbeth would be with everyone else without it being just another quest to get some material from some boss. Frankly, I'm a little bored of boss battles. However, in just a few chapters, we'll be going into boss battles galore so I don't really have a choice.**

 **LINK START!**

 **Kirito's POV**

"Why does Heathcliff always assign us to go on the dungeon raids?" Dillon complained.

"Because we're the most capable members of the Knights of the Blood Oath." Asuna told him.

"Or he just wanted us to leave for a few hours." Ashley pointed out.

"Not the first time someone wanted to get me killed." Dillon said laughing alongside Ashley.

"When did someone try to get you killed?" Sinon asked as she walked through the dungeon.

"Whoa!" I said grabbing Sinon's wrist and pulling her backwards. Sinon looked confused until she looked down and saw that the floor was completely broken right where she was going to step.

"Thanks." Sinon said quickly.

"Now where do we go?" Asuna questioned not seeing a way across the chasm.

"We could always swing across on vines like Tarzan." Dillon joked.

"Or we could grow fairy wings and fly across." Ashley said once again cracking the two up.

"I'm serious, guys." Asuna said angrily.

"We could jump it." I suggested.

"Enough jokes. We need to find a way across." Asuna told us.

"I was being serious." I said.

"There's no way any of us could jump across that." Sinon responded.

"If we had a good enough running start." I began.

"No way you could do it." Sinon told me.

"Believe what you want." I said backing up, preparing to run. As I started to run and was about to jump, I was suddenly grabbed and pulled back, shoving me to the floor.

"What were you doing!?" Sinon yelled.

"I was trying to get across." I explained getting off the ground.

"I wasn't kidding! You can't make it across by jumping!" Sinon scolded me.

"It was worth a shot." I told her.

"No! No it was not worth a shot!" Sinon shouted. "You could've died!"

"Okay, I'm sorry." I said trying to calm her down.

"Sinon, Kirito, you two go retrace our steps to the entrance of the dungeon. Maybe there's some other pathway we missed." Asuna said.

"On it." Sinon said dragging me quickly away from the chasm.

* * *

 **Nobody's POV**

"So what do we do?" Ashley asked.

"See if there's another non-deadly way across the chasm." Asuna told us.

"Pole-vaulting?" Dillon suggested.

"Sure, then we can use the pole to make a tightrope to get back." Ashley joked with Dillon.

"Will you two take this seriously?" Asuna asked angrily to the two jokesters.

"We're just trying to lighten the mood, Asuna." Dillon told her.

"Maybe instead you should be looking for a way across." Asuna said.

"You need to lighten up. You're always so concerned with the next boss raid or getting through a dungeon that you don't stop to hang out." Dillon said to her.

"We don't have time to 'hang out'. I don't know if you've realized this, but we're trapped in a death game! Real people's lives are at stake!" Asuna shouted.

"That doesn't mean you can't just take a second to slow down." Dillon told her.

"We've been trapped here for three years. Thousands of people have died so far. We can't afford to slow down." Asuna said sternly.

"We've only got seven more floors left." Dillon pointed out.

"And it doesn't get any easier. We have to get through this game more than ever." Asuna said.

"I know that, but stressing about it won't help anyone." Dillon responded.

"Don't you get it!? We're all on a time limit!" Asuna yelled, sending an echo throughout the entire room. "Hospitals won't support all the SAO players forever. And once they pull the plug on our Nerve Gears, it's game over for everyone." The room went dead quiet after that. Dillon and Ashley hadn't even considered how they were still alive in the real world while playing through the game, as they were more concerned with staying alive in the virtual world.

"How long do you guess we have?" Dillon asked.

"Best case scenario, three months." Ashley guessed.

"Then we have plenty of time to get through this game." Dillon said.

"We may less than three months." Asuna reminded him.

"Doesn't matter. Only 7 bosses left and at least a month to do it." Dillon said giving a guess of his own. "That'll be easy."

"Haven't you been paying attention to anything? These bosses take at least 5 days to find and defeat each, and who knows how hard it will be to find the later bosses. There's no way we'll make it." Asuna told him.

"If there's no way we'll make it out, then why bother trying?" Dillon asked.

"Wh-what?" Asuna said shocked by his question.

"You just said, there's no way we'll make it out by the deadline. If that's the case, then why do even try to get out?" Dillon questioned.

"Because we could make it." Asuna added.

"But you just said we couldn't." Dillon reminded her. "If there's no way to escape, there's no hope in trying."

"What else do we do then? Sit around and wait for them to kill us?" Ashley asked sarcastically.

"We do like Edwin Jenner did, and opt out." Dillon said with a smirk on his face as he fell backwards into the chasm.

"DILLON!" Ashley and Asuna shouted down after the boy as he fell down the chasm.

 **So, I know that this chapter was really short for the time I made you guys wait for it, but it nicely sets up some things for next chapter. Next chapter will be the last one before floors 95-100, which will end off the SAO arc and then we'll go into the ALO arc. But ALO is a discussion for a later date. Also, I hope somebody actually gets the Walking Dead reference in this chapter. I recently got a Netflix account and have just been binging that series all throughout the break. Thanks for reading!**


	31. The Cloak

**Nobody's POV**

"DILLON!" Asuna and Ashley shouted as the boy fell down the chasm.

"This is bad. This is very bad." Ashley muttered to herself.

"How could he just do that? Commit suicide without a second thought?!" Asuna wondered as she kept staring down the chasm, hoping to see him somewhere.

"What happened?" Kirito asked as he ran into the room with Sinon.

"What's with all the yelling?" Sinon questioned.

"Dillon...he..." Ashley tried to say.

"That asshole jumped down the chasm!" Asuna answered.

"What!?" Kirito asked surprised, joining Asuna at the edge of the cliff, the two calling his name.

"He's really dead...isn't he?" Asuna asked sadly.

"Nope." Sinon responded.

"W-what?" Ashley wondered.

"Look on your friends list. Dillon's still there." Sinon explained.

"How is he alive?" Asuna asked.

"How should I know?" Sinon questioned.

"Well, Sinon and I found a hidden pathway while we were searching, but there's a split path. Sinon and I will go one way, then Ashley and you can go the other to try and find Dillon." Kirito explained.

"Sounds like a plan." Asuna agreed.

"You coming, Ashley?" Sinon asked as the three started heading to the passage.

"Yeah." Ashley answered as she put the hood of her cloak up and followed them.

* * *

 **Asuna's POV**

"Damn Dillon..." I muttered as Ashley and I wandered through the dungeon. "Can you believe he did something like that?"

"It does seem a bit extreme." Ashley responded.

"A bit?" I asked rhetorically.

"But I don't think he did it for no reason. Maybe-" Ashley began.

"LOOK OUT!" I shouted as a monster dashed toward Ashley. Ashley quickly got out her knives to try and beat the monster. Ashley slashed at it, but the monster dodged, grabbing Ashley's cloak with its teeth and running off.

"What was that thing?" I wondered.

"M-my cloak..." Ashley said wide-eyed.

"You okay, Ashley?" I asked waving my hand in front of Ashley. "It's just a cloak, we can get another one after we get back into town." As I started to continue walking through the dungeon, I turned around to see Ashley standing completely still. "What are you waiting for? We have to go find Dillon."

"My cloak..." Ashley repeated.

"We can get you a new one later." I assured her.

"No...we can't." Ashley told her as she started running after the monster.

"Ashley!? What the hell are you doing!?" I shouted chasing after the girl. What is her problem? It's just a cloak and she's chasing down a monster in this maze of a dungeon for it while Dillon is still missing. "Wait up!"

"I have...to get...it back..." Ashley said breathing heavily as she ran.

"We can worry about this later! Ashley!" I yelled after her. We were running for at least ten minutes, and Ashley showed no signs of stopping. Eventually, she stopped dead in her tracks, allowing me time to catch up to her. "What's wrong?" As I asked this, I turned to see what she was looking at. There was a dozen monsters in the circular shaped-room. In the center of the room was Ashley's cloak, completely torn apart. I turned to look at Ashley, who had tears forming in her eyes. She quickly blinked them away as she took her knives from her belt. Ashley yelled as she unleased multiple sword skills against the enemies, killing 11 of them in less than thirty seconds. I didn't get to have a good look at any of the monsters due to how fast Ashley was killing them. The last monster was standing over what used to be Ashley's cloak.

"JUST DIE ALREADY!" Ashley screamed as he lunged toward the monster, impaling it with her knives, killing it instantly. Ashley sat down next to her destroyed cloak, muttering things I couldn't here.

"Ashley? Are you okay?" I asked.

"Go find Dillon. I'll catch up with you." She told me.

"What's wrong? Why is that cloak so important?" I questioned.

"Asuna, have you ever heard of the Laughing Coffin guild?" She asked.

"Y-yes." I said remembering that horrible murder guild.

"I...I was a..." Ashley said as a few tears came out of her eyes. "I was a member of that guild." I had no idea what to say to that. This girl was a member of Laughing Coffin!?

"Tell me everything." I told her.

"When I first joined this game, it was with all my friends from real life. There was about 7 of us back then. After Kayaba told everyone it was a death game, we fled to the next town. One of them said they couldn't handle the pressure of this game, so they committed suicide. The rest of us tried to stay low, avoiding boss battles and leaving safe zones. Until we were running low on money, so we were forced to go out hunting, and one of my friends died because of how weak we were. We were completely lost, until a member of Laughing Coffin offered us a place in their guild. We were desperate and accepted it. I...I...killed so many people..." Ashley told me. "But the rest of us were doing fine, until the Knights of the Blood Oath figured out where our base was."

-FLASHBACK-

"Listen, Ash." One of my friends told me the day we were raided by them. "We may all die here, but no matter how many people you have to kill, just get away from here."

"I can't do that! I don't want to keep killing people!" I told him.

"Ashley, how many people have you killed since we joined this guild?" He asked.

"I don't know." I admitted.

"Exactly. The moment when you don't know how many people you've killed, is the moment when it doesn't matter anymore."

-END OF FLASHBACK-

"All of my friends died that day. That cloak was the last item I got before I joined Laughing Coffin. I thought, that if I ever took it off...if I ever lost it...then I truly did lost my humanity." Ashley explained as tears flowed out of her eyes. "I know how your guild feels about Laughing Coffin." Ashley said as she rolled up the sleeve on her shirt, revealing the symbol of Laughing Coffin. "If you want to turn me in, then go ahead. I won't stop you."

"Dillon knows about this, doesn't he?" I asked and Ashley just nodded.

"He was helping me cope with all this. He reminds me of my friend, before we joined Laughing Coffin." Ashley admitted.

-FLASHBACK-

"Ash!" My friend called out to me as he sliced someone in half. "Get out of here! Now!" He pleaded killing another person.

"I won't leave you guys!" I told him.

"Just go!" He shouted as a member of the Knights of the Blood Oath impaled him with their rapier, killed him.

-END OF FLASHBACK-

As she said that, memories of the Laughing Coffin encounter came rushing back to me.

"It was me..." I remembered. "I killed your friend...I am...so sorry." I said as tears came running out of my eyes too. "I promise, I won't turn you in."

 **I apologize for the short chapter again, but I haven't had a lot of time to work recently, and just wanted to get a new chapter out before it went to long without an update. There is something I want to ask you guys though. I've been reading back through some of my older stories and chapters, and chapter 1 of this story is not something I'm very proud of. I was wondering if I should go back and redo chapter 1 of this story, or just leave it the way it is. I leave the decision in your hands. Thanks for reading!**


	32. The Serpent

**Asuna's POV**

After a few minutes of silence between us, Ashley and I continued our search for Dillon. We tried to track him on our maps, but we were unable to due to being underground, which concealed your location. As we walked through the dungeon, we came across a split path.

"Damn...now what do we do?" Ashley asked.

"It's too dangerous for one of us to go in each, so we'll have to take one path, then circle back and do the other." I explained.

"Which way do we go first?" Ashley questioned.

"Maybe we should go lef-" I began before we heard a shout coming from the right path. "Right. We should go right." The two of us instantly took off down the right path, jumping over rocks that stuck out of the wall and ignoring small enemies that were in the path.

"Dillon!" Ashley shouted down the hall as we ran. Eventually, we reached the end of the tunnel which led into a large circle room. "Where are you, Dillon?" Ashley yelled again but Dillon was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, the way back to the path was blocked by a rock that fell from the ceiling.

"Hooray! Dinner is served!" A sinister voice said from somewhere in the room. I drew my sword and Ashley got out her knives. The two of us stood back to back ready for a monster to attack.

"Ashley! Asuna! Help!" We heard Dillon's voice yell.

"Dillon! Where are you?" Ashley asked as she let her guard down.

"RIGHT HERE!" Dillon said as a serpent creature jumped down from the sky onto us. I quickly grabbed Ashley and got out of the way as the creature landed on the ground.

"What's wrong, Asuna? It's me." The serpent taunted in Dillon's voice.

"How is that possible?" Ashley questioned.

"That's not Dillon. That's a monster that can copy someone else's voice." I told Ashley.

"Well aren't you the perceptive one?" The serpent said reverting back to the sinister voice. "She's right. I can mimic the voices of the players I hear."

"Does that mean you know where Dillon is?" Ashley asked.

"Yep, I remember his voice clearly before I gobbled him up!" The serpent told her before it started laughing. "That foolish boy thought that by jumping off the cliff he could prove some kind of point. I think he deserved to be eaten."

"Ashley, stay focused!" I told her as I charged toward the serpent and tried to use my 'Linear' skill. However, the serpent quickly dodged out of the way and knocked me against the wall.

"Well, I was going to ask who wanted to get eaten first, but it seems like you've already volunteered." The serpent said as it stared at me. Now, I was able to get a good look at the monster. It's skin was red and it had a pair of yellow whiskers on its face. I could also see that it had a set of razor sharp teeth which looked perfect for killing a player. It seemed to have small wings on its back but I wasn't sure if they were able to be used and it also had a tail shaped like a fan.

"Leave her alone!" Ashley yelled as she through one her knives at its eyes. The serpent wailed in pain for a second before turning to Ashley more angry than hurt.

"You want to die first, pipsqueak!?" The serpent shouted as it dived toward Ashley. Ashley ran to the side, causing the serpent to smash into the wall, but it quickly shook it off and continued chasing Ashley. While it was distracted, I thought of a plan and ran towards the rock blocking the exit.

"Hey ugly!" I yelled causing the serpent to turn toward me. "I bet you can't even kill me!" Like I predicted, the serpent was very quick-tempered and dashed toward me. Just before it ran into me, I dodged out of the way and it slammed into the rock, breaking it. "Ashley, quick let's go!" I shouted as Ashley and I began running back through the path the way we came.

"I'll tear you both to pieces!" The serpent screamed as it tried to fit through the small hallway, but couldn't.

"We should probably go find Kirito and Sinon." Ashley suggested.

"Sounds like a plan." I agreed as the two of us continued as the serpent's yells echoed through the dungeon.

* * *

After we reached the crossroad where we first split up from Kirito and Sinon, we stopped to catch our breath. I quickly messaged Sinon saying that we didn't find him and that we were back at the entrance. We could tell her the whole story later.

"Dillon...he's not dead." Ashley said speaking up.

"What are you-" I began before Ashley interrupted me.

"He's still on my friend's list which means that the serpent was lying." Ashley explained.

"If he was lying about eating Dillon, then how was he able to mimic Dillon's voice?" I wondered.

"Maybe Dillon escaped the same way we did." Ashley suggested.

"I don't think that's the case." Sinon said as she walked up to us.

"Finally, you're here. You wouldn't believe what happened to us." Ashley began.

"Tell me later. But first of all, if Dillon had escaped, he would've responded to my message by now. So either he's ignoring us, or he's in trouble somewhere." Sinon told us.

"Sinon! I need help!" Kirito shouted from down the path Sinon came from. The three of us picked up our weapons and ran toward Kirito's voice. When we reached him, he was using his dual swords to hold back the same serpent from earlier.

"What a coincidence! It's nice to see you girls again." The serpent greeted as it backed away from Kirito.

"Oh great...this guy again..." Ashley said sarcastically as Sinon started throwing knives at the serpent, which it quickly dodged.

"Now that you're all in one place, I can finish you off for good!" The serpent shouted as it dived toward us. Ashley and Sinon dodged to the right while Kirito and I went to the left.

"Asuna, Quadruple Strike together!" Kirito yelled to me as he charged toward the serpent. The two of us hit the serpent's head at the same time, causing its health to deplete drastically.

"You little pests!" The serpent wailed out angrily. "Alright, now you've gone and done it!" The serpent's eyes went to a blood red color as it turned toward Kirito and I. "Let's just see how long you can play the dodging game!" The serpent charged toward us and we quickly got out of the way. However, instead of slamming into the wall like the serpent normally did, it changed its direction midair and continued chasing us.

"Guys, I have an idea, just buy us some time." Kirito said as he ran toward Sinon and the serpent began chasing Ashley and I. This wouldn't be a problem, except for the serpent was quickly catching up to us.

"I'll tear you limb from limb!" The serpent yelled as it got closer and closer to us. Just as the serpent was about to reach Ashley, a knife landed in the ceiling above us, causing to cave in on top of the serpent.

"Who knew a serpent's weakness was falling rocks?" Ashley joked as Sinon and Kirito met up with us.

"You guys okay?" Kirito asked.

"We're just fine." I answered.

"I'm doing great. Thanks for asking." Dillon's voice said. Ashley and I glared at the serpent who was trapped under the rocks.

"He tricked me by mimicking Dillon's voice." Kirito explained.

"Us too." Ashley told him.

"You can stop with the voices now. We all know its you." Sinon said to the serpent.

"I haven't said anything. I've been trapped under rocks." The serpent told her. Suddenly, a sword stabbed through the serpent's neck and Dillon emerged from the opening.

"That was disgusting." Dillon said as he was covered in blood.

"That's what happens when you CUT OPEN SOMEONE'S THROAT!" The serpent yelled to him angrily as it tried to escape from under the rocks.

"Dillon!" We all cheered as he turned toward us.

"Hi." Dillon simply responded.

"You asshole! You had us worried sick that you were dead." I scolded him.

"But I'm not, and that's what really matters." Dillon joked.

"What the hell were you thinking doing that!?" Ashley said yelling for once.

"I was proving a point. Asuna said that we don't have time to mess around. Yet you guys just spent all day looking for me. If she was serious about that, you would've left me to die." Dillon explained.

"How did you even survive that fall?" Kirito asked.

"He landed on me." The serpent muttered angrily.

"Was getting eaten by the serpent part of the plan or was that an accident?" Sinon questioned.

"No comment." Dillon answered. "Now, can we get back to base? I need to clean this stuff off."

"Yeah, Heathcliff will start wondering where we are." Kirito said as the five of us started to leave the dungeon.

"Hey! Wait! You guys can't just leave me here!" The serpent pleaded desperately trying to escape from under the rocks. "Get back here!" It shouted as we left the dungeon and teleported back to the Knights of the Blood Oath headquarters.

 **Now that they finally found Dillon, we can move on to the last stages of SAO. Floors 95-100. Thanks for reading!**


	33. Truth

**Kirito's POV**

"I told you we could beat the game in time." Dillon said to Asuna.

"We haven't won yet. We're still 5 bosses away." Asuna reminded him.

"At the rate we're going at, we'll be done by the end of the week." Dillon said confidently.

"These bosses won't be the same as the one's we've been fighting recently. I doubt Kayaba would have his last lines of defense be anything less than nearly unkillable." Sinon mentioned.

"We've survived way crazier stuff before. Kirito beat the floor 74 boss by himself." Dillon reminded them.

"But that was a long time ago and the bosses have only gotten stronger." I said.

"The fact still stands." Ashley told us.

"There you guys are!" We heard the familiar voice of Klein say.

"Klein! How have you been?" Sinon greeted.

"Great! My guild's been training really hard so we're in perfect condition for today's fight." Klein told us.

"Make sure to not take the boss down all by yourself. I need to hit it at least a few times to get the rewards." Agil mentioned as he walked up to us.

"I'm sure we'll all get our chance to hit the boss." I assured him.

"Well of course you will. You're on the front lines!" Agil said punching Kirito on the arm.

"Kirito! Sinon!" A younger voice said. We turned around to see Silica and her pets running toward us. "Heathcliff just gave me the okay to join you guys in today's boss fight!"

"You sure you can handle it, Silica?" Sinon asked worriedly.

"Of course I can! Lisbeth just forged me some really strong armor and I've been training really hard!" Silica said enthusiastically. "And I know Pina and Fenrir won't let me down!"

"Who are you?" Dillon asked.

"That's right. You guys never met. Silica, this is Asuna, Dillon, Ashley, Klein and Agil. Guys, this is Silica." Sinon introduced them.

"Nice to meet you." Agil said.

"Who are these little guys?" Klein asked inspecting Pina, who was on Silica's head and Fenrir, who was close to her legs.

"You must be a beast tamer, right?" Dillon guessed.

"That's right!" Silica nodded.

"Attention everyone! We are about to begin our assault on the 95th floor boss." Heathcliff announced and several members of many different guilds cheered. "I have been the head of the assault team since floor 21. And I take great pride in knowing that there are many members of the assault team who have been here for just as long. As your captain, I have one thing to say to you. This battle will not be easy and many of you may lose your lives, but remember that for every person who dies out on the battlefield, leads to ten more people getting freed of this death game. Together, we WILL free the people of Aincrad!"

"There's Heathcliff again, with his motivational speeches." Asuna said to me trying to speak over the shouts and cheers of other players.

"Then let's begin the charge!" Heathcliff said as he led his troops into the portal followed by the rest of us.

* * *

As we entered the boss room, there was one thing that was immediately different. Instead of a huge arena, it was a lake-sized pool of water. We all stood there, waiting for the boss to reveal itself. After about 30 seconds, a huge creature jumped out of the water, grabbed one player with its mouth and went back underwater with the player in tow.

"I guess we have no choice." Heathcliff said as he and the over a dozen shield-users started taking steps into the water. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for them to reach the deeper parts of the water where they could not stand use their shields. The rest of the group joined them and made a huge circle on the outline of the lake where we could all stand in the water and waited for the boss to jump out of the water. Heathcliff got a single rock out of his inventory and threw it into the center of the arena, causing the boss to jump out of the water and race over to attack the shield users.

"Shields up and hold your ground!" Heathcliff yelled. The group of shield-users held up their shields and blocked the boss' attack. This gave me time to see the boss clearly. It was a very mossy-green, like the color of the water we were all standing in. It had two large fangs on it's upper jaw then two medium sized ones on it's lower jaw. It had a very thin neck but a large body with two fins on either side of the body. It also had a large, pointed tail that it used to impale another player straight through his armor, killing him.

"All units! Attack!" Heathcliff ordered. Chaos then erupted throughout the arena as the monsters used it's tail to impale and drown many players and many other players tried to get close enough to stab it. I could see Pina flying above the monster, trying its best to attack the head. I saw Agil and Asuna slicing at its large body on one side while Dillon and Ashley were on the other side.

"Kirito! Try to run up its back and slice off its head!" Sinon yelled to me over the commotion. I nodded as I ran toward the boss. I managed to jump onto its tail which I used as a platform to jump onto its back. As I raced toward its neck, ready to unleash Starburst Stream, its head turned a full 180 degrees around and attacked me with its fangs. Its fangs plunged right into my stomach, before it threw me backwards into its tail which it quickly used to force me under the water.

I struggled against its tail as it dragged me farther and farther down. I was quickly running out of oxygen and needed to think of something fast. I had lost my swords when it pulled me down under so cutting off its tail wasn't an option. I desperately tried to swim back to the surface with the last amount of strength I had. It was no use. The boss was not going to let go of me anytime soon. My vision started to blur as I ran out of oxygen and right before my vision went completely black, I saw Sinon as she dived down toward me, her arm outstretched.

* * *

"Kirito! Kirito!" I faintly heard someone say. The voice was becoming increasingly clearer as they kept shouting my name. "Kirito!" This time I could hear them loud and clear and I quickly opened my eyes to see Sinon looking at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. I took a deep breath before Sinon sighed in relief.

"God dammit, Kirito! Stop scaring me like that!" Sinon said angrily as I started to sit up and saw everyone who was still alive, panting heavily on the ground.

"It was your idea to attack the boss' neck from its back." I told her.

"I didn't plan for you to nearly die!" Sinon shouted.

"Okay, calm down. I'm fine, Sinon." I assured her.

"I thought we had lost you there for a second." Dillon said to me.

"I thought I was a goner too." I admitted.

"We're glad you're alright." Agil said patting me on the back.

"So, you guys beat the boss without me?" I said pretending to be hurt.

"Yep. Which means no items for you." Klein taunted.

"Attention everyone." Heathcliff said standing up. "I have an announcement to make." Everyone in the room instantly shifted their focus to Heathcliff.

"It has been a great honor to fight alongside all of you as we clear this game. However, I'm afraid our time together has ended." Heathcliff told us. "You see, the person who trapped you in this game, Akihiko Kayaba, is actually me." After he said that, I wanted to get up and fight him right here, however, he had placed all of us under paralysis. I could tell that many other people we're thinking of doing the same thing as me only to find that they couldn't move their bodies.

"While I have very much enjoyed these fights we fought together, as the creator and ruler of Aincrad, I am the 100th floor boss. I shall see you all when you get there. But I will warn you, the next four bosses will not be as easy as any of the bosses you have previously fought. I hope at least some of you can join me for the final boss fight." Heathcliff said as he walked through the door to the 96th floor and presumably about to bring himself to the 100th floor.

"The captain...was...Kayaba..." Asuna said in shock.

"This whole time, Kayaba was right next to us!?" Dillon said angrily.

"Calm down guys. You'll get a chance to unleash all that anger when we make it to the 100th floor. And trust me, we WILL make it there." I assured them.

"Just you wait, Kayaba. You won't win this fight. We're going to get out of this world and you can't stop us!" I said to myself.

 **Before I end this chapter I do want to clarify how you die by drowning is SAO (or at least how I presume you would drown). Basically, when you go underwater, you have a time limit on how long you can hold your breath. Once that time runs out, your health starts depleting and it won't stop depleting until you get some air. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	34. The Manticore

**Sinon's POV**

There wasn't much on floor 96. There was only a small town so we could all rest up to fight the next boss. There were no side-dungeons, no NPCs, not even area around the town. It was just the town and the tower where the boss is. We all spent a few hours resting and getting prepared. By evening, we had reached the boss room.

Everyone on the assault team was very hesitant to enter. For as long as I could remember, Heathcliff would stand in front of everyone and give his classic motivational speeches, but Heathcliff wasn't here anymore. He was waiting for us on floor 100. Asuna, being second in command, tried to fulfill Heathcliff's role.

"I won't lie to all of you. There will be some of you who die here and never make it back to the real world. The road to floor 100 will not be easy, but if we can overcome these last few bosses, we can liberate everyone who is still in Aincrad." Asuna told everyone. Nobody seemed to be all that excited, unlike when Heathcliff would give his speeches. Asuna just nervously turned around and opened up the boss gates.

As we entered, the torches lit up the arena revealing the boss in the center of the room. The boss looked very similar to a lion, with the exception of its purple bat wings and scorpion tail.

"That's a Manticore!" Asuna shouted to everyone.

"How does that help us beat it?!" Dillon yelled back as the Manticore lunged at us and the shield-users blocked its attack.

"Shield-users, keep those claws and tail off us. Everyone else, attack the wings and body!" Asuna told us. I could see Kirito, Agil, Ashley and Klein with his guild running toward the Manticore. It used its tail to impale one player who got too close but a few shield-users got behind it and kept the tail from attacking anybody. I aimed by throwing knife and launched it toward the Manticore's wings. The Manticore, unfortunately, saw this coming and started flying away, damaging a few more players in the process.

I tried a few more knives, all of which either missed or hit the Manticore's body, which it didn't seem fazed by. Silica was shouting commands to Pina, who was flying above the Manticore firing at it. The Manticore was angered by this and tried to grab the little dragon but Pina was too fast. The Manticore, in a rage, flew down and attacked some more players. I could see two players die amongst the chaos. This became a cycle of me trying to hit the Manticore's wings to no avail, and then assault team trying to take down its health, but it was far too resilient. I reached for another knife to throw, only to end up finding one left. I had only packed enough knives to last me through one boss, but with no apparent way to access the lower floors, this was my last one. I carefully aimed the knife at the wings but the Manticore was moving around too much to aim properly.

I looked around its body more for a weak spot if there was any, but I couldn't find one. I was about to try my luck with the wings again, until I noticed something. After repeated attacks on its tail, the tip of it seemed to be loose. I aimed my knife again, smirking as I threw it. As my knife soared through the air, I felt like time was slowing down to a crawl. This was my last knife and if this attack didn't work, I'm not sure how we would beat it. After what seemed like an eternity, the knife found its target. I had hit the area between the tip of the Manticore's tail and the rest of its tail. The tip detached from the rest of the tail, falling and impaling the Manticore's back.

The Manticore cried out in pain, allowing the chance the assault team needed to get the upper hand. I pulled out my dagger and joined in the fight against the Manticore. Asuna was using her "Linear" sword skill to take out the Manticore's wings while it was distracted, and Kirito used his "Starburst Stream" attack to significantly decrease the Manticore's health. Klein, Agil, Dillon and Ashley all attacked the Manticore with a variety of sword skills while Silica commanded Pina to attack from above and Fenrir to bite at the Manticore's skin. The Manticore was faced with a constant onslaught of attacks, never having a chance to defend itself. That tail was its main source of offense and those wings were its means of escape. With both of those gone, all it could do was trying to slash and bite its way to victory, and it lost. With one final attack from Asuna, the Manticore's health depleted and it burst into polygons.

After a few seconds of panting by everyone on the assault team, they all cheered as the "Congratulations!" message appeared on-screen along with all of their rewards. Once all of the cheering and conversation died down, Asuna opened the gate to floor 97 and we went to the next floor.

* * *

The floor was identical to the last one. No enemies, no NPCs, just a small town. Kirito tried to use a teleport crystal to return to the lower floors, but it didn't work. We were all stuck here until we either beat the game or died trying. That night, after most people had already went to sleep to rest for tomorrow's boss battle, I was sitting at the town square thinking about how we can beat the last few bosses with only a short break in between each boss. I was about to head to sleep when Kirito showed up.

"What are you doing up?" I asked him.

"I could ask you the same thing." Kirito joked as he sat down next to me.

"We almost lost a dozen people on that one fight alone, and its only going to get harder." I mentioned.

"It's not like we can back out now." Kirito said. "We either keep fighting and possibly die or stay here and definitely die."

"Okay, say we clear the game, then what?" I wondered.

"We get back to the real world." Kirito said wondering where my confusion was.

"That's not what I meant. I mean what happens to us, and everyone else." I began. "What are the odds that we all find each other in the real world?"

"I'd say pretty good since SAO was only released in our region of Japan." Kirito reminded me.

"What about if one of us dies on the last floors?" I asked.

"Sinon, we're not going to die. We've made it this far and we are getting out of this game." Kirito told me confidently. "What's with all these depressing thoughts all of a sudden?"

"Over these past three years, Aincrad has started to feel like a home. Not a great home, but still a home. It's been the place where I've met you, Asuna, Dillon and Ashley. I'm scared about what will happen when we have to leave." I admitted to him.

"Nothing will change between any of us. We just won't be wearing any armor." Kirito joked.

"Dillon's the only one who actually wears armor." I muttered.

"Then the transition back to the real world shouldn't be that difficult." He said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I said. While that's what I told him, I was actually thinking about what my life would become. For years, I had lived by myself because my mom had become "mentally unstable". When I entered SAO and became friends with Kirito, Asuna and everyone else, it felt like I had a new family. As we inched closer to beating the game, I got more scared about what might happen when we leave. I felt safe is SAO, as strange as it was to say.

"We should probably get to bed. We have a long day tomorrow." Kirito told me as he stood up and started heading towards one of the inns on the floor to sleep. I shook away the thought and headed with Kirito back inside.

"I'll think about all that when it comes. For now, I'll just enjoy these last few days in Aincrad." I thought.

 **This chapter wasn't very long as you can see. Next chapter will be bosses number 97, 98 and possibly 99. I'm not sure if I will be able to squeeze all 3 bosses into one chapter, but I can try. Thanks for reading!**


	35. Bird on the Perch

**Kirito's POV**

We only spent a day on floor 97 before moving onto the boss. I looked around at all the players around us. I could only count around fifty to sixty players left on the assault team. I was losing hope that we can still beat this game with every boss we fought, but there was no sense in giving up now. Asuna didn't even try to encourage the other players as she opened up the boss doors and we all walked in.

The arena looked identical to all the others we've ever seen, only we couldn't find the boss. We all spent a minute standing there, waiting for the boss to come, but it didn't. Everyone was confused by this, some people even thought that the boss not appearing was a glitch, and since we couldn't beat it, we would be stuck here forever.

"Calm down, everyone! I'm sure the boss will appear." Asuna said trying to get everyone to relax, but it didn't work. Suddenly, part of the ceiling broke off and fell on top of one of the players, crushing and killing them. We all looked up to see a bird-like creature through the hole in the ceiling. The rest of the ceiling began to fall and killed another player, before everyone started panicking. I could see the bird start flying upwards as more and more of the ceiling fell.

"This way!" One player shouted as stairs suddenly appeared, leading to the ceiling. Everyone rushed up the stairs, but before everyone could get up, the stairs vanished, leaving two players trapped below everyone.

"Help! Help us!" The two players shouted trying to jump and reach the outstretched arms of Asuna and a few other members of the Knights of the Blood Oath. The floor we were standing on (which was the ceiling above the two players), didn't stop crumbling, so many players began hopping to another platform that had appeared. I looked up and tons of platforms jutting out of the wall in a spiral formation, which led to where the bird creature was currently sitting. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy to reach the boss, as the bird had started throwing giant rocks down. One of those rocks smashed into one of the player's head who were trying to help the stranded players, killing him instantly. The people who were trying to help immediately gave up and started jumping up the platforms from the wall. As Sinon and I started to climb up the spiral of platforms, we turned back to see Asuna hesitantly leaving the two players who were still on the floor.

"No! Please don't leave us here!" The two begged, and Asuna was just about to turn back and try to help them again until one of the boulders the bird was throwing killed one of the players and injured the other to the point where he couldn't get up. It was clear that we couldn't save them. As the injured player cried out for help, Asuna, Sinon and I began rushing up the platforms.

As we all ran, we saw many players die on the way up. Some of them lost their footing, and plummeted back to the ground. Some were crushed by the boulders the bird was throwing. Despite the many players dying around us, we kept pushing forward, toward the top. I could see Klein who was way ahead of us, leading his guild to the top. Dillon and Ashley weren't too far behind, and Agil was only a little ways ahead of us. Suddenly, Sinon grabbed Asuna and I and yanked backward. I nearly fell off the platform if it weren't for Sinon's tight grip. Before I could ask why she did it, a boulder smashed into the platform where Asuna and I would've been on had Sinon not grabbed us.

"Be careful!" She shouted at us. Once the boulder rolled off the platform, it was easy to see that the now cracked platform would not be able to support all three of us at a time. Asuna carefully jumped from the platform we were standing on, over to the cracked one. However, the cracked one started to crumble again and she jumped back over to us just in time before the platform broke away from the wall and fell to the ground.

"Dammit." I muttered as I looked over to the next platform ahead of us. It was too far away for us to jump to. We could try climbing the walls of the arena to make it to the other platform, but it seemed like too risky of an idea to attempt. For now, all the three of us could do was wait for the boss to be defeated.

* * *

 **Dillon's POV**

"Almost there!" Ashley said in relief as we jumped from platform to platform trying to reach the boss. From this range, we still couldn't see the boss' name, but we could see its health bar.

"Only 1 health? Doesn't that seem a little suspicious?" I asked Ashley.

"Not really. If you think about it, reaching the bird is the boss battle, so killing the boss is more of triggering the path to the next floor." Ashley explained.

"Why not just let us fight the bird instead?" I said angrily to no one in particular.

"Because fighting flying enemies has always turned out to be extremely easy." She said sarcastically as we kept jumping. It would only take us another minute or two to reach the boss, however the bird was throwing more and more boulders directly at us as we got closer. One of the members of Klein's guild ended up getting forced off the platforms by one of the boulders and falling to his death. When we were almost to the bird, it screeched loudly at us and darted forward.

I didn't have enough time to check the boss' name before it picked up a player behind us and dropped him down to the floor. The bird continued to move around so fast that I could blink at it would be in a completely different spot than before. It killed three more players before it dove down and grabbed me with its talons.

I struggled a lot, trying to break free of the creature's grip, but was unsuccessful. Before the bird could drop me, I drove my sword into its chest. The bird wailed in pain as it tried to retreat onto its perch. I lost my grip on the sword before falling down, and luckily landing on one of the platforms, albeit with only a quarter of my health left after that fall. I looked up at the bird to see its health drain and it burst into polygons before it could reach the perch.

The normal 'CONGRATULATIONS' sign appeared in front of me, and I collected the rewards from the boss without a second thought, as there was nothing I could do with the col and materials. I watched as all the platforms that had been cracked or destroyed by the boulders were remade. I sighed as I began to make my way all the way back down to the ground.

When I was about halfway down, I was stopped my the voice of Ashley calling out to me. I turned around to see her hopping down each platform, one after the other until she reached me. She nearly fell off the platform when she didn't stick the landing, but I caught her before she could.

"Is there any particular reason why you are rushing down these platforms?" I asked her.

"Because I wanted to return this." Ashley said holding out my golden sword. "It nearly impaled someone when it fell after the boss died."

"You could've just given this to me when we got down to the ground." I pointed out as I put the sword back in my inventory.

"That's not as fun." She said chuckling as the two of us continued down the platforms.

"Only three left." I thought to myself as Kirito, Asuna and Sinon came into view, who were already on the ground.

 **First of all, sorry for the long wait and shorter chapter. I took a break from writing for a couple weeks, so this chapter had a longer delay than I would've liked. I've also decided to split each of these last boss fights into their own chapter, just so its more easy to manage. Hopefully the next chapter won't take nearly as long to make as this one did. Thanks for reading!**


	36. The Prince of Aincrad

**Sinon's POV**

We only got to rest for one night at floor 98 before it was time to fight the next boss. Everyone who was still left on the assault team had very damaged armor and weapons. Some had resorted to using weaker armor that still had a lot of durability so that their armor doesn't break in the middle of a fight.

"Just three more bosses..." We all told ourselves. We just have to beat three more bosses then we will all be free from Aincrad. However, that hope we had was fading with each boss we fought. We were down to only forty players left on the assault team.

As we all approached the boss doors, Asuna tried to give a speech to boost everyone's confidence, which didn't work. She opened the boss doors slowly and we all entered the room. Kneeling in the center of the arena was a lone man. He wore heavy armor and held a medieval broadsword in his hands. He also had a purple cape and a golden crown. The "man" looked up at all of us and now we could clearly see his health bar and name. With six health bars appearing next to him, the man stood up and faced everyone. The boss' name, "The Prince of Aincrad", was revealed above him.

"Let's start..." The Prince said in a strange voice as he got into a battle ready position. Was this the boss? Just one guy with some armor? "NOW!" The Prince shouted as suddenly hundreds of copies of the Prince filled the room in front of us. The copies immediately rushed toward the assault team with no hesitation.

"What the hell!?" I yelled as I stabbed one of the copies with my dagger, which killed it instantly, despite the heavy armor. I quickly slashed through another couple of copies before spotting Kirito, who was making quick work of many of the copies with his two swords. Agil seemed to be having some trouble, but Klein and Asuna helped him out. I wasn't able to spot Dillon, Silica or Ashley in the sea of copies.

After I defeated around two dozen copies, which all seemed to just be simply replaced by more and more copies. I could see the Prince, the real one, begin walking through the room toward a player who was beginning to get overwhelmed by the number of copies.

I began rushing toward this player, cutting through some of the copies on my way there. Before I could reach the player, a wall of copies blocked my path and started fighting back against me. I tried to block and dodge as many attacks as I could, but my dagger couldn't hold off the copies forever. I looked up at my health bar quickly to see that I had already lost half of my HP, and it was draining fast. I felt one of their swords stab straight into my stomach, causing me to wail in pain. I slashed at the one who stabbed me, killing it, but two more of the copies took its place. Through the chaos throughout the room, I managed to see the player I tried to save earlier be slashed across the chest by the real Prince.

"Dammit! We can't keep losing people! At this rate, we may not even make it to Kayaba..." I thought to myself sadly as I dodged one of the copies' attacks, only for me to be met with another slice by a copy. There's too many of these damn things.

After a while, I lost count of how many copies I had killed, but it had to be somewhere near forty or fifty. However, there didn't seem to be any less copies in the room that when we started. The real Prince was going around the room, killing off any players that we at low health. With a quick glance at my health bar, I saw that I was approaching the red zone, which caught the attention of the Prince.

He slowly made his way over to me, as I tried desperately to cut my way through as many copies as I could to escape. Unfortunately, there was just too many of them. With a few more attacks from the copies, I fell to my knees in pain, with the Prince looking down on me.

"You will never escape this world." The Prince told me as he raised his sword and swung it downwards onto my head. I braced for the hit to come, for my health bar to finally hit zero after three long years, but it never came. I heard the sounds of swords clashing as I opened my eyes to see Kirito fighting the Prince himself.

"You saved my ass back on floor 95, I thought I'd repay the favor." Kirito told me jokingly as he and the Prince dueled.

"Thanks." I told him quickly before getting up off my feet. I knew that I was no match for the Prince in a duel, so I helped out Kirito my keeping the clones of the Prince off of him for as long as I could.

* * *

I didn't know how much time had passed since Kirito had started fighting the Prince. As the two of them fought, and the Prince's health decreased, it seemed like the hoard of copies was thinning out, and it gave other players like Agil and Asuna chance to help Kirito in fighting the Prince. Silica, Ashley, Dillon and I, along with the majority of players were still stuck killing the copies, but with the lower amount of soldiers, it allowed everyone the chance to drink a health potion and keep fighting. Every so often, I could get glimpses of the other players' fight with the Prince.

Their attacks didn't do much, but overtime, it did enough to get him down to a quarter of a health bar left. However, everyone who was fighting the Prince did not get the chance to heal up, so they were all in the low-yellow to low-red range of health.

The Prince managed to overpower many of the players easily, and he was about to slice his sword right through Asuna. I tried to run and help her, but like last time, I was too slow. Klein snuck around behind the Prince, and stuck his sword through the Prince's neck right before he could kill Asuna. This managed to deplete the last bit of the Prince's health, and the boss collapsed to the ground.

"You all...will not leave..." The Prince said trying to reach out for his sword, but before he could, he and the sword exploded into polygons and we had won the fight.

We all hurried to floor 99 to rest for the day, before we challenge the next boss tomorrow. We were almost there. I counted up all the remaining players we had, to a total of thirty-one. All that was left was the floor 99 boss, and Kayaba himself.

"We can still do this..." I told myself, but the logical part of me knew that after everything we went through, we were likely not going to make it out of Sword Art Online.

 **Only two bosses left, which means only two (or maybe three) chapters left in this story. Thanks for reading!**


	37. The Guardian

**Kirito's POV**

Thirty-one. There was only thirty-one players left on the assault team. If we don't beat the last two bosses, no one in Aincrad could escape this world, and eventually, they'd all die. Sinon, Asuna, Dillon, Ashley, Agil, Silica, Klein and I had all made it this far. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was no way that we were all getting out of this alive.

"Kirito, it's time." Sinon whispered to me as Asuna opened up the door to the floor ninety-nine boss. I unsheathed Elucidator and Dark Repulser as the remaining players entered the boss room. Laying on the other side of the room was a massive dragon. It appeared to be fast asleep, but even with that, most of the players were intimidated by it. It was bigger than any boss we've faced so far, being a quarter of the size of the entire room. It was dark red with black horns jutting out of its head. It's tail look like it could easily slam a player against the wall with ease.

Nobody moved toward the dragon for a minute or so. I pulled out one of my remaining throwing picks from my jacket and lined it up with the dragon's eye. I threw it without hesitation, sending it silently flying to the dragon. However, as soon as it got close, the dragon shifted its head so the pick would hit the scales below its eye. The pick broke instantly on contact with the dragon's scales. The dragon slowly got up from its sleeping position until it was standing on all four of its legs, towering over all of us. The name 'Guardian of the King' appeared above its head, and seven health bars appeared next to it.

The Guardian let out a terrifying roar that sent chills down everyone's spines. After that, it finally attacked us. The dragon swept its tail across the floor, which was barely dodged by most players. Three players weren't as lucky, being hit with the tail and being slammed against the wall, killing them. Twenty-eight players left.

Dillon and the four remaining shield users charged up to the Guardian. They tried to attack the body of the boss, however their swords didn't do very much damage. I could barely see its health bar drain, but it did, only by a little. The Guardian apparently didn't like them attacking it, no matter how little damage it did. It looked down at the players and opened its mouth. I thought it was going to roar at them, however it didn't. No one had any time to warn the players before flames poured out of the dragon's mouth and fell on the five players.

We heard shouting and screaming coming from the players, until Dillon and two other players emerged from the flames. Their armor appeared to be melting down and dealing damage to them. The three of them quickly removed all their armor, which was smoking from the heat of the dragon's flames. I saw some of the members Klein's guild hand them all health potions since all of their health bar's were in the low yellow. Before they could drink the potions, one more player came out of the flames. They had been wearing a helmet, which was now melting on to their face. It was a horrifying sight, which seemed to be what most other players thought since no one approached him. The player collapsed, shrieking as they tried to remove the helmet to no avail. After a few seconds, the dragon squashed the player. With the player who died in the flames, we only had twenty-six left.

"Come on!" Asuna shouted as she led Sinon and three other players up the dragon's tail and climbed up the body. I quickly followed them, running across the boss' back to reach them. They all tried to attack the Guardian's neck, however it ended up just like Dillon's group, with very little damage being done. We only managed to deal about half a health bar worth of damage before the Guardian twisted its head to face us all.

"Get off!" Asuna told everyone as she jumped off the Guardian's back. We all followed her example as flames burst out of the dragon's mouth. As I was jumping off the dragon, it moved its head forward to try and eat me. In a desperate attempt to stop him, I held its mouth open with my swords. This was bad, if the dragon wanted to, it could burn me alive right now. The Guardian moved its head upward so I was far above the ground now. I glanced downward at the ground, and instantly knew that if I tried to let go of my swords, I would die from the fall damage. At the very least, I was distracting the dragon long enough for the other players to do some damage. The dragon was down to only six health bars now. I tried to figure a way out of the situation. Either I would burn alive or fall to my death. Either way, my time at Aincrad would come to an end.

"KIRITO! HOLD ON!" I could hear many players shout from the ground. I remembered all the great times I've had at Aincrad, and all the friends I made. I can't just give up without a fight. There had to be something I could do. "KIRITO!" I heard a voice yell. It was Silica's. Not only that, but it was very close. Was she climbing the dragon? I didn't have time to wonder about things like that. Maybe I could climb out of its mouth, but it would probably cost me one of my swords, maybe both. A sword for my life? Definitely worth it. The only problem was how to climb out. If I was quick enough, I could grab its nose and pull myself out of here. Okay, that might work. I could slide down the dragon's neck and reach the ground. That would probably distract the dragon long enough for the assault team to-.

Suddenly, the item breaking sound effect played as Dark Repulser exploded into polygons. Of all the times for my sword to break. I was suddenly sliding down the dragon's slimy tongue. With only Elucidator in my hand. I let go of Elucidator so I could try to climb back up to its mouth. The dragon's tongue was, unsurprisingly, hard to grab onto and I started slipping. This was it, swallowed by a dragon. I had a plan...I was going to get out...and now that's all down the drain. This is where I'm going to die. Twenty-five players were left.

"Don't give up yet!" I heard someone say as someone grabbed my arm and pulled me up. It was Silica. She was standing in between two of the dragon's teeth, with one hand around my arm and the other balancing herself on the dragon's snout. The dragon's mouth was barely still opened, but I saw Pina and Fenrir holding it open with all their strength. "I'm glad I made it in time." She said as she lifted me up. I barely squeezed through the dragon's mouth, and lifted myself on top of its head. I tried to pull Silica up next to me, however the dragon was much smarter than we anticipated. It jerked its head to the side, which caused me to nearly fall off, but I managed to hold on. Fenrir wasn't as lucky as it flew out of the dragon's mouth and was unable to hold it open. I watched it horror as the dragon slammed its mouth closed. Pina was eaten alive and only the upper half of Silica made it out of the dragon. "Kiri...to..." I heard Silica say before she burst into polygons. There was only twenty-five players left on the assault team.

Fenrir, who was still falling down to the ground, being a wild monster now, began growing and reverted back to its form that Silica, Sinon and I had first found it in. Even then, it was still much, much smaller than the Guardian. I tried not to think about what happened to Silica until the boss battle ended. I moved around the dragon's head carefully before sliding down its neck back to the ground. It now had only five and a half health bars left since the assault team had been damaging it the whole time I was stuck. Fenrir gave out a loud roar before running up to the dragon and slashing and biting at it.

"Attack now!" Asuna commanded. The boss was far too busy dealing with Fenrir to care about the damage we were doing to it. Fenrir did most of the damage though. It's claws were able to do more damage in a single slice than we were able to do all attacking at once. Fenrir bit into the dragon's neck over and over in a rage, however the dragon was far superior to Fenrir in strength, endurance and most importantly intelligence. While Fenrir mindlessly slashed at the dragon, the dragon smartly waited for its opportunity for Fenrir to be tired out before unleashing its fire breath at full force, burning poor Fenrir to death.

However, Fenrir had done enough damage to the dragon that we were able to beat it before any more players died. We were all too weak to celebrate our victory against the dragon. Everyone just sat down to regain their health, count the players still alive and just get prepared for Kayaba.

"Here." Sinon said throwing something at me. It was Elucidator. "This fell out of the boss after it died." She told me. I tried to thank her for getting it for me, but I couldn't. I fell to the ground and just let the Silica's death replay in my mind. It was supposed to be me. I was going to die. Silica saved my life and she died for that. Even after she died, Fenrir saved all of our lives. I had very little faith that we would've beat the dragon if Fenrir hadn't done most of the work.

"Kayaba isn't going to be easy." Sinon said to me. "And we won't have a wolf to save us next time."

"I have one sword, you're out of throwing knives, Dillon's armor is useless, most of Klein's guild is dead, and there are only twenty-five players still alive. How can we win?" I asked her. She pulled me close and kissed me for a few seconds before pulling away.

"I don't know. But we will. We have to." Sinon told me as the two of us sat there for what seemed to be hours. No one made any moves to get up and advance to the next floor. No one wanted to keep going. But after a while, Asuna did get up. She helped everyone else get up onto their feet.

"There's no going back. This is it. We die here or we leave Aincrad forever." Asuna said to everyone as she lead us to the 100th floor. Sinon grabbed my hand before we both walked into the final floor. Instead of being at a town like the last few floors, we were teleported to a throne room. On the throne sat Heathcliff himself.

"You've finally arrived."

 **Thanks for reading!**


	38. End of the World

**Kirito's POV**

"You've finally arrived." Heathcliff said sitting on his throne. "Took you all a little longer than I expected, but nevertheless you made it. As the creator of this game, Akihiko Kayaba, I would like to welcome you all personally to the final floor of Aincrad. Sadly, this is where your quest ends." The twenty-five players still alive all readied their weapons and got ready to fight. Kayaba smirked before his avatar, Heathcliff was engulfed in flames. After a few seconds, the flames subsided and in Heathcliff's place was the cloaked avatar that we all saw back on the first floor, telling us the rules of our lives for the next three years. Only one health bar appeared next to the boss, and it's name was just Kayaba.

"Attack!" Asuna yelled to everyone. The assault team charged forward as one to attack Kayaba, who immediately waved his hand and three players were stopped in their tracks. A purple orb began appearing in his hand which he then launched at the three players. With that one hit, all three of the players died instantly.

"A stun and insta-kill move!? Really?" Klein yelled in surprise before we actually began to attack Kayaba. Asuna, Ashley, about four other players and I were running circles around Kayaba, trying to distract him. Meanwhile, the rest of the players dealt damage to him from the ground. However, Kayaba wasn't as easily fooled as the other bosses in the game. He stunned three more players at random in our group, and lifted them in the air for everyone to see.

"Turn back now, return to Aincrad and you will be spared." Kayaba told us as he summoned another purple orb from his hand and used it to instantly kill another three players.

"Forget it, Kayaba!" Asuna shouted as she jumped up and used her "Linear" sword skill to stab at Kayaba repeatedly. "We are NOT turning back now. Not after we made it this far!"

"Poor choice." He said as he continued to be barraged by attacks. His health bar was already half empty. With all these insta-kill moves he's able to do, it doesn't surprise me that he has such low health. SAO was designed to be a "fair" (if you want to call stun and insta-kill bosses fair) game, and I guess even Kayaba can respect that.

"You fought beside us!" Agil said angrily as he slashed at Kayaba's arms.

"For over 70 floors!" Klein continued as he and one of the last members of his guild attacked Kayaba's body.

"Why would you do this to all these innocent people!?" Dillon yelled as he join in with Ashley for an attack at his body.

"Maybe you all still need some more convincing." Kayaba said as he once again picked up three more players from the group. A member of Klein's guild, an axe wielder I didn't recognize and Ashley.

"NO!" I heard a Klein, Dillon, and another player I didn't know yell as they tried to grab a hold of someone who Kayaba picked up, Klein for his guild member, Dillon for Ashley and the two players I didn't. Dillon did manage to grab onto Ashley as she was being pulled up, but could not stop Kayaba.

As Kayaba began to summon another purple orb, I could see the terror in the four players' eyes.

"Dillon! Let go of me!" Ashley pleaded. "You can't save me, but you can still make it out of this game!"

"No, I can do this, just hold on." Dillon said as he desperately searched his inventory for something that might save Ashley, or another of the players who were about to die. Without warning, Ashley used what little movement she had in her foot to kick Dillon in the wrist. Dillon was forced to let go of Ashley as Kayaba launched the purple orb and the three players all died.

Dillon landed on the ground with a loud thud, as he sadly saw the polygons that were once Ashley float away. Klein, who was enraged that the last of his guild members died, charged at Kayaba and unleased sword skill after sword skill, which quickly tired him out. Kayaba looked like he was about to lift up Klein and use the purple orb again, but Asuna used "Linear" once more, which depleted the last fraction of Kayaba's health.

Everyone in the room cheered for a moment, this was the end of Sword Art Online, however, as Kayaba's avatar exploded into polygons, every player fell to the ground. All of them except for me. I stood in the middle of the room, confused as Sinon dropped to floor next to me. Everyone was paralyzed somehow. I saw the polygons that made up Kayaba's avatar begin to reform into Heathcliff.

"Surprised? You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?" Heathcliff asked chuckling. He started walking towards me with his sword drawn. "Kirito, I know you might be wondering why you are the only one who is not paralyzed."

"Yeah, that did cross my mind." I told him.

"It's because you are quite reasonable, Kirito. Everyone else here I'm sure would run over and try to stab me right now, but you stay put, because you know you would not make it out alive. You have been one of the smartest and strongest players in this game, so I would like to make a request. Convince the rest of these players to abandon their suicide mission against me. We both know that it will only end in everyone's deaths, and we wouldn't want that." Heathcliff explained.

"Of course, if you do convince them otherwise, I will allow you to return to the lower floors, where you can all spend your last days alive in peace with everyone." Heathcliff said.

"Like hell he would ever, do what you ask!" I heard Asuna yell angrily.

"Kirito, you know just as well as I do how this will end if you don't put a stop to it. I'm giving you the opportunity to let these people live the rest of their short lives in peace, rather than die in a battle that they could never win. What do you say?" Kayaba asked me as he stood above me. Without hesitation, I grabbed Elucidator and lunged at Kayaba. I heard the stabbing noise as I plunged Elucidator deep into Heathcliff's chest.

"Looks like it was easy, after all." I told him smirking as I started to run short on breath. I looked down to realize that at the same time I had stabbed Heathcliff, his sword had impaled me as well.

"You would give your life for some random people online?" Heathcliff said astounded as both of our health bars reached zero.

"They're not just...some..." I tried to say but the two of us exploded into millions of polygons before we could finish.

* * *

 **Sinon's POV**

"KIRITO!" I yelled as I watched Kirito and Heathcliff die in front of my eyes. "Don't leave me, please." I said faintly. Everyone sat in shock for thirty seconds until a prompt appeared in the middle of the room.

"CONGRATULATIONS! You have beaten Sword Art Online!" A booming voice said. "All players will now be logged out of the game in 60 seconds."

"We...we did it." Someone in the group of fifteen remaining players said.

"Need some help?" Asuna asked me as she stood above me, reaching out her hand. I hadn't even realized it, but the paralysis had worn off. I slowly took her hand and she raised me up onto my legs.

"I can't believe Kirito would just..." I tried to say but I couldn't make myself say it. This time, there was no revival item. No AI there to stop the sword. Kirito's had just died.

"Damn, he couldn't resist the exciting exit, huh?" Dillon told us trying to make a joke, but tears started welling in his eyes.

"Look on the bright side, we're free from SAO." Agil told us. "Kirito would want us to focus on that. He sacrificed himself so we could all get out."

"Removing all players from SAO in 30 seconds." The voice said.

"We should all meet up in the real world, that would be really cool." Asuna told everyone, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I'd like that." I said quietly.

"So, what's your name?" Dillon asked her.

"Asuna." Asuna answered.

"I think he meant your real name." Klein said as he joined the group.

"Yeah, Asuna."

"You used your real name as your username?" Dillon asked trying to hold back a chuckle.

"So what?" She said glaring at him, but Dillon couldn't help but start laughing. "It's Asuna Yuuki, just someone else say their name."

"Okay, okay," Dillon said as he stopped laughing. "I'm Ryuzaki Ide."

"Andrew Gilbert Mills." Agil said.

"Tsuboi Ryoutarou." Klein told everyone.

"My name is Shino Asada." I said.

"Players will be logged out in 10." The voice said it began to count down from 10.

"We'll see all you guys in the real world!" Klein said giving us all a thumbs up.

"It still feels so surreal that this is actually happening, after three years." Asuna muttered.

"I'm with you there." I told her.

"5...4...3...2...1." The voice counted down, and as we were all finally free from this game, I just thought about Kirito, and how he gave his life so we could get out of here. 6000 players free, because Kirito died.

"All players will now be logged out of Sword Art Online."

 **And done...almost. I plan for their to be one more chapter of this story to close off everyone's stories in the real world, then we will get into ALfheim Online, which will be a separate story from this one. I plan for ALfheim to be the end of this story, so sorry but nothing from SAO II or beyond that. Thanks for reading!**


	39. The Real World

**Sinon's POV**

It has been two months since Sword Art Online had officially ended. Two months that I had been awake for the first time in three years. Two months since Kirito died and I haven't seen anyone from the game since. When I had first woken up, there was no one to greet me. My mom was still in a mental hospital because of the bank robbery when I was a kid. My uncle did come to visit me when he heard I was awake. It was nice to have someone else to talk to besides Kyouji to talk to for a while, but he eventually had to go back to his home. Even without my uncle, I was fine by myself. I always had been.

Apparently, starting in the fall, I had to go to this "special school" for the SAO survivors. I was excited because that meant I was going to see Asuna, Dillon and everyone else again, but every time I thought of it, my mind kept wandering to all the players who didn't survive SAO. Silica, Kirito, and 4000 other players died playing the game.

"I'm sorry again for what happened to you in SAO. I honestly thought that playing the game would help you." Kyouji apologized to me. Every since I woke up, he apologized to me almost every day for me being stuck in there.

"I keep telling you not to beat yourself up about it." I told him. "There's no way anyone could've known it was going to trap and kill players in it for three years."

"I'm just glad you're alright. I don't know what I would've done if you had died because I convinced you to get the game." He said to me. Before I could say anything else, we heard a knock on my apartment door.

"That's odd, who would be knocking on your door at this hour?" Kyouji asked. It was 10 o' clock at night right now, so it didn't make sense for someone to be knocking on my door.

"Is that your brother?" I asked Kyouji as I walked to go answer the door.

"No, he's still dealing with the virtual-murder charges against him." Kyouji told me. Kyouji had told me a few times about how his brother was a member of the Laughing Coffin Guild, a guild that killed other players. Apparently a lot of the surviving Laughing Coffin member were being charged with murder because of their actions in game. However, most of them are getting off with no charges due to their being no evidence of the people being killed by the specific Laughing Coffin members. His brother was still in the middle of it, but was supposed to be getting the final verdict soon. However, when I opened the door, the last person I expected it to be was on the other side.

"Hi there." A teenager said to me, not looking up to see me. He was at the list in his left hand, and in his right hand was a map and a cup of coffee. "Are you...Shino Asada?" He said reading something off of his list. The boy had brown hair that resembled Kirito's but was slightly longer. He had brown eyes that flicked from one side to the other as he scanned his map and list.

"Um...yes." I said confused. When I said that, the boy's face lit up with a smile, and finally looked up to see me. When he did that, I instantly recognized him. I couldn't forget Dillon's permanent smile even if I wanted to.

"Ryuzaki Ide," He said pointing to himself. "But you may know me as-" He began but I cut him off by embracing him in a hug.

"Shino! Who was at the door?" Kyouji called from inside the apartment.

"It's a friend from SAO!" I called back to him as I dragged Dillon inside the apartment.

"Wait, seriously?" Kyouji asked in surprise as he saw Dillon.

"Yeah, we were both members of the same guild and we hung out all the time with Asuna and Kirito." I explained to him. I had told Kyouji all about my time in SAO, including all of my friends, the guild and some of the bosses.

"Well, it's nice to finally meet one of Shino's friends from SAO. She's talked about all of you a lot. I'm Kyouji Shinkawa." Kyouji introduced himself.

"I'm Ryuzaki Ide, but Sin- I mean, Shino, has probably called me by Dillon." Dillon explained.

"Yeah, she mentioned you a few times." Kyouji said.

"So, how did you find me?" I asked Dillon.

"I was a pain in the ass. Agil and I spent days looking through phone books, calling people and visiting houses, but we finally found you." Dillon explained.

"Agil? You found him to?" I asked.

"Yeah, him and Klein already. We still haven't found Asuna though." Dillon said. "Agil actually runs a café nearby."

"Really?" I said in shock. I hadn't really expected all of us to live nearby each other. Guess we're just lucky.

"Well, I have to head back home before my dad gets mad at me for staying out late again." Dillon told me. "You should stop by Agil's café tomorrow. We'll be starting our search for Asuna." He said chuckling as he pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down the address of Agil's café before leaving.

* * *

The next few months went by so fast. I had reunited with Agil and Klein the day after Dillon found me. Together, the four of us managed to find Asuna, however her parents were very strict about her and everything about the SAO incident, so in order to talk to her, we just had to call her instead of meeting her in person. Luckily, today was the day that the school for SAO survivors began, so we actually get to see Asuna today.

Kyouji was kind enough to bring me there before heading off to his own school (which was my old one). Soon after arriving there, I spotted a ton of familiar faces from the game. I saw Lisbeth, who I was a little surprised to see actually had brown hair, as well as our old guild blacksmith, Crane. I hadn't talked to him a ton in-game, but it was nice to see he made it out of SAO.

"Hey! Sinon!" I heard Dillon yell as he ran up to me, holding someone by the arm behind him. I wasn't able to tell who it was at first until I heard her unmistakable voice.

"Slow down, Dil- Ryuzaki!" Asuna yelled at him as she tried to keep up.

"Asuna!" I said not caring at how stupid I probably looked as I ran up to her and embraced my best friend in a hug.

"It's good to see you again, Sinon." Asuna whispered to me as we let go of each other.

"And now the whole group's back together!" Dillon said happily.

"Um...are you sure about that..." Klein asked Dillon as he stared somewhere with his eyes wide.

"Of course I'm sure. Agil, Asuna, Sinon, you and I are the only ones out of our group that made it-" Dillon began but cut himself off as he looked in the direction of where Klein was staring. I looked to where they were staring to find a small crowd of people surrounding one person. I couldn't see who they were for a few seconds, until they pushed their away out of the crowd.

"Yes, yes, I'm alive. I can explain everything just please give me some space." Kirito said to the group of people, but then spotted Dillon, Klein, Asuna and I. "Hey guys, guess you didn't expect to see me here, huh?"

"Well holy shit..." Klein whispered as a smile appeared on his face. I quickly pushed past Klein and Dillon as I ran forward toward Kirito. He was alive. He was still alive.

 **And so, this story is (finally) coming to a close. Well, the SAO arc at least. Soon, I'll do the ALO arc of the story, and that will be the proper end to this story. However, that is an issue for a later date. Right now I just want to thank everyone who has read the story up to this point. It really means a lot to me that a lot of you have stuck with this story, especially since those early chapter were pretty bad looking back on it. Part of me wants to go back and redo some of them so they are less bad, but another part of me wants to leave them like that as a way to show how much I've grown since, holy shit June of 2015? Has it really been that long already? Anyway, let me know if you guys want me to go back and fix some of the chapters, or if you want me to just leave them the way they are. Okay, I'm going to stop rambling now and just wrap this up. The ALO arc of this story should start up fairly soon, hopefully by the end of June. Until then, I want to once again thank everyone who has read, favorited, followed and reviewed this story. Thanks for a great two years of writing this, and hopefully ALO will not take nearly that long to finish.**


	40. Sequel is (finally) out!

**This is not an actual chapter, as the title would suggest. After a *cough* "slight delay", Alfheim Online: A New Beginning's first chapter is finally out. I go more into why this took so long in the actual chapter itself, so go read that. I'm really glad that all of you have supported Sword Art Online: Virtual Prison for the past two years, and I hope you'll all like the new story. That's really all I have to say. So just go, read the new story. Thanks for reading this story.**


End file.
